Outfoxed. Hotspur

“That’s true, but maybe he rode up to get his bearings and try to find the farm road. We don’t know where he parted company with Trooper. He could have covered a lot of ground and he could have suffered a concussion and been disoriented.”

“We’ve tried everything else,” Shaker agreed. He kept the headlights on low since high beams would only reflect back off the fog, making vision even worse. “Can’t see a bloody thing!”

“Drive along the flat part. At least to the tree.”

“Christ, in this stuff we’ll probably run into it.” He crept ahead.

The great gnarled shape hove into view, silvery fog sliding over branches.

Not until they were almost right up to the tree did they see Ralph flat on his back.

Shaker braked. Both he and Sister bolted out of the truck.

“Oh no.” Sister covered her face for a second. Ralph had been shot right between the eyes.

Shaker knelt down to feel for a pulse. Sister knelt on the other side of Ralph’s body. She, too, touched his neck.

“Warm. He can’t have been dead long,” she said.

“We heard the shot.”

“Oh, Shaker, if only we knew what he knew.”

“If we knew what he knew, we’d be dead, too.”

Sister, a surge of fury running through her, cried,“Why didn’t he tell us!”

“Because he knew he’d be killed.” Shaker held up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

She stood up.“Goddamn whoever killed him!”

CHAPTER 29

The horses calling over the pastures told the hounds what had happened. The news passed from animal to animal. Domesticated animals wished to protect their humans.

The wild animals, with the exception of the foxes, generally didn’t care what humans did to one another. Sister took care of the foxes, and they wished no harm to come to her.

Athena, Bitsy, and Inky sat protected under a heavy canopy of oak leaves.

“The killer’s come out of his lair,”Bitsy said. She had grown fond of some of the humans.

“Bad enough Nola was killed. Bad enough,”Inky repeated to herself.

Athena turned her head upside down, then right side up.“Cold-blooded. If we hadn’t sheltered in the Bancrofts’ barn we’d know who shot Ralph.”

“The humans won’t figure it out, will they?”Bitsy worried.

Athena breathed in, her huge chest expanding outward, parting her feathers enough to show the beautiful shaded variations underneath.“This is bad. Very bad.When a killer breaks cover like this he’s both ruthlessand now reckless.”

“What about Sister? Is she safe?”

“Who knows?”Bitsy shrugged.“Any human who getsin the way is in danger, I would guess.”

“Pity you foxes can’t lead the killer to his death. Itwould be a fitting end,”Athena said.

“A lot of things happen during a hunt. Maybe we willget our chance,”Inky said,“if we can find out who it is.”

“Well, this is certainly a hunt. If a mouse sits stock-still, I might miss him. But if he moves, then I’ve got achance. This human is moving.”Athena blinked.“Hereally has broken cover.”

“But he’s foiling his scent,”Inky said.

“He’ll make a mistake. He’ll come into view. I justhope the next human who flushes him out is ready.”

CHAPTER 30

For some people, Ralph’s end came as a relief. Eager for tidy answers, they assumed he had killed Nola and Guy and had finally, undone by the unearthing of the dead, shot himself. The fact that no gun had been found did not disturb their desire for an easy answer. Then, too, most suicides don’t shoot themselvesbetween the eyes.

Others, no less eager for answers but less inclined to take the easy way out, wondered what Ralph could have done to provoke such a violent end.

Sister felt a sense of foreboding; an evil had been unleashed. Then she realized the evil had always been with them, they’d just chosen not to notice.

She and Shaker sat on that ridge for two full hours. First came the sheriff and his crew, then the Rescue Squad to remove the body once it had been photographed, examined, and finally released.

The kids waited back at the stable as they were told. Sister informed them they’d found Ralph. She spared them the details. When she and Shaker finally returned to the farm, they discovered the girls had done all their chores.

Raleigh and Rooster stuck to Sister’s side likes burrs.

The rain continued, but the fog started thinning out. An oppressive mugginess made it hard to breathe, and even though the temperature remained tolerable, the closeness of the air felt like a shroud.

As they lacked a kennelman, Sister and Shaker were responsible for the job of cleaning the kennels after a hunt. Tired but usually happy from the day’s hunt, they tackled this with the help of a couple of cups of black coffee. Today the girls had given them an unexpected respite. When Betty returned to pick up Jennifer and Sari, Sister insisted on giving the girls each a fifty-dollar bonus. Betty didn’t protest. She was too shaken up by Ralph’s murder.

The outdoor runs glistened in the downpour. The indoor runs and pens had been powerwashed. Each of the raised sleeping beds was filled with fresh, soft sawdust chips.

The hounds were snuggled down in their cozy beds, sleeping after a good hunt. They had enjoyed having the two young women fuss over them.

After the girls left, Sister and Shaker sat down in the kennel office. They’d told everything they could think of to Ben Sidell, but they hadn’t had a chance to talk to each other. Given the swift shock of it, they found they hadn’t much to say to each other immediately.

“Hell of a note.” Shaker wiped his face with a towel.

“It’s not a sight I’ll soon forget.” She took the towel from him and wiped her own face and hands. “If only I’d led the field back to the Bancrofts’.”

“Sister, you couldn’t have seen any more than Edward did. Fog was thick. Cut it with a knife.”

“My ears are more educated.”

“True, but you’d have been up ahead. Ralph was in the back. Once it stops raining we can go back to the coop. Maybe we’ll find something on the ground, but it would appear he left the coop and rode to the ridge.”

“I’ve been thinking. He didn’t go alone. And someone who really knew the territory, despite the fog or maybe even because of it, could have taken him up there, shot him, flown down the back side of the ridge, and been at the trailers not long after everyone else came in.”

“True.”

They sat there on the beat-up wooden chairs that had been donated to the kennel office almost thirty years ago.

He drummed his fingers on the metal desktop.“Why would Ralph willingly ride with his killer?”

“Maybe he didn’t know he was going to be killed. Maybe the killer said he needed help or he knew a shortcut—”

“Ralph knew Hangman’s Ridge. He had to know he was going wrong.”

“He still could have been bamboozled in some fashion.”

“Killer could have forced him up there.” Shaker wiped his hands on his thighs. “And somewhere along the way he made Ralph dismount.”

“Sybil was out there.” Sister shifted uneasily in her chair.

“Easy to slip away in the fog.” He poured himself more coffee. “I’m drinking too much of this stuff. So are you.”

“What if whatever the killer knew about Ralph was enough to ensure his cooperation?” Sister ignored his coffee comment.

“I wonder if we’ll ever know.”

She said with weariness,“Shaker, I believe it was Ralph who called me about looking in the river off Norwood Bridge.”

“Jesus.” Shaker sat up straight because some pieces were falling into place.

“Just hear me out. I don’t think Ralph killed Nola. He might have killed Guy; he couldn’t stand him because of Nola. But I don’t think he killed her. I think he accepted that he’d lost her. That romance was busted, and he was already courting Frances. On the rebound maybe, but people are like that.”

“They are.”

“But somehow he was connected with those murders. There is no doubt in my mind he helped the killer lift that fiftyfive-gallon drum and toss it into the James.”

“But over all these years you’d think he’d have told, or the guilt would have gotten to him.”

“Well, I couldn’t live with it. You couldn’t live with it. But obviously he could. And maybe, just maybe, he stood to gain by his actions.”

“I suppose he gained his life.” Shaker shrugged.

“Why?”

“Well, he knew the killer might kill him if he didn’t help.”

“Possibly. I think, though, that he came out ahead in some other way.”

“Was Ralph a vengeful enough man to want to see Nola dead?”

Sister turned this over in her mind.“No, but he might have wanted to see her suffer. You know, to see her finally get dumped by someone. But you’re right, I don’t think Ralph could have helped her killer. Which leads us to—what?”

Shaker’s thick auburn eyebrows jerked upward. “The killer might have told him Guy killed Nola. Ralph exploded and killed Guy. Or Nola’s killer had already done the deed and needed help disposing of Guy’s body. He’d be plenty tired from digging Nola’s grave, not that Ralph would know that.”

She shook her head.“If Ralph had known Nola was killed or thought she was killed by Guy, then he would have told Tedi and Edward.”

“I don’t think so. Look, we can never know what goes through someone’s head, but maybe Ralph thought, ‘done is done.’ He can’t bring her back. Maybe he had a special sympathy for the murderer. Or maybe the killer could somehow pin it on him? How could Ralph prove he was innocent?”

“That’s a good point.” She didn’t know if too much coffee was making her jittery or if she was jittery anyway. “Either way, he was vulnerable.”

Shaker slapped the table.“And who stood to gain more than Sybil? She’d get Nola’s part of the Bancroft fortune. Millions upon millions upon millions. Right?”

“We know one thing for certain we’d only suspected before.”

“What?”

“The killer really is in our hunt field.”

CHAPTER 31

The rain stopped Sunday morning, revealing skies of robin’s egg blue and temperatures in the middle sixties.

Sister, Shaker, and Walter met Ben Sidell at the mailbox for Roughneck Farm. They drove in two four-wheel-drive trucks to the cornfield, then parked off the farm road to walk to the coop between the cornfield and the Bancroft woods.

Impressed by Walter’s attention to detail at Norwood Bridge, the sheriff was glad the doctor accompanied them. Sister just felt better when Walter was around, although she didn’t really know why. The same was true for Shaker. He grounded her.

The mud sucked on their work boots. The ends of their pants’ legs were sopping wet from the grass.

Raleigh and Rooster bounded along with them. At first Ben resisted, but Sister convinced him their superior senses might turn up something helpful.

A half-moon puddle glistened before the coop, the depression the result of many hooves digging in before the jump.

Ben crouched down. The rains had washed away hoofprints. He stood up, leaning his hands on the top kick-board as he studied what had been the landing side of the coop on the way home from Saturday’s hunt. All he had found near the body was Ralph’s new flask. He’d hoped he’d find more here.

“And this was the last place anyone saw Ralph?”

“Yes,” Walter answered. “It was the last any of us saw him, those of us who stayed with Edward.”

“Shaker, Betty, and I left him at the apple orchard,” Sister reminded Ben.

“Right.” He cupped his chin in his right hand. “And you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face.”

“Right,” Walter again replied.

“Well, how’d you get over the coop?”

“Trusted my horse,” Walter said.

“And you still jumped it?” Ben thought these foxhunters were crazy.

“Sheriff, you do things in the hunt field you’d never do anywhere else.” Walter heard a caw as St. Just flew overhead.

“Over here,”Raleigh barked at Sister.

Sister walked to where both the Doberman and the harrier stood. A sodden handkerchief lay in the cleared path between the cornfield and the fence line.“Sheriff, I don’t want to touch this.”

They hurried over, and Ben knelt down and peered at the handkerchief. He pulled on a thin latex glove, picked up the wet, muddy handkerchief, and dropped it in a plastic bag.

“Keep coming,”Rooster, farther down the fence line, called out.

Shaker walked up to the hound.“Sheriff. A string glove.”

The white woven glove lay in a puddle.

A few minutes later the other glove was found where the cornfield curled right toward a small tributary feeding into Broad Creek.

The four humans and two dogs, wet to the knees, ankle deep in mud, sloshed to the base of Hangman’s Ridge.

“Hansel and Gretel,” Sister sorrowfully said. “Maybe Ralph dropped or threw away his gloves and handkerchief on the way.”

Shaker exhaled.“Anyone could have dropped gloves or a handkerchief. I just don’t know why Ralph would have left the other people. It makes no sense to me even if he was nervous. Wouldn’t there be protection in numbers?”

“Guilt—or he snapped. People do,” Walter said. He jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, then asked Ben, “What do you think?”

“I try not to jump to conclusions.”

“What can we do?” Walter asked.

“Wait for a crack in the armor,” Ben evenly replied. “The morning newspaper, which I’m sure you read, reported he was shot, the weapon hadn’t been found, and the sheriff is investigating.” He smiled ruefully, folding his arms across his chest. “That’s a nice way of saying we don’t know a damned thing.”

“You’re a doctor, Walter. Do you think our killer is rational?” Sister asked as she knocked one shoe on the other. Mud fell off in red clumps.

“I’m a neurosurgeon, not a psychiatrist.”

“For which we’re all grateful.” Sister half smiled at him. “But you see people in crisis daily. Surely you get a feeling about the real person. Do you have a sense of this person?”

“Well, yes, I think our killer is rational and opportunistic. The fog gave him—or her—a chance to do what he or she was ultimately planning to do. Sister, I think it was Ralph who called you,” Walter said.

“Me too. Shaker and I thought of that. And I told the sheriff, too.”

“Shock. It’s a hell of a shock to see someone you know like that.” Shaker wanted to get his hands on the killer. “Poor bastard, flat out in the rain.”

“Which brings me back to why?” Sister said. “Why make a spectacle of Ralph? Why not kill him away from everyone? Why not dispose of his body and be done with it just like he thought he had done with Nola and Guy? I wonder if this isn’t a warning.”

“The hanging tree, a warning to all, the place of punishment.” Shaker nodded up toward the ridge.

“Shaker’s right. This was so dramatic. He’s arrogant. He thinks he’s invincible. He must have some incredible sense that he’d never be suspected.”

“No one would think Sybil killed her sister,” Shaker said quietly. He didn’t want to think Sybil capable of such a deed, but she had the best motive that he could discern.

“Paul Ramy certainly fingered her for a suspect. But he couldn’t make anything stick,” Ben confided to them. “He thought if she killed her sister that her family would protect her.”

“Tedi? Never!” Sister quickly responded.

“Sister’s right. But Edward might cover for her,” Shaker added. “He’d lost one daughter. What good would it do to have the other in jail? I assume that’s what a father would think.”

“I don’t believe it. I know Edward is protective of his girls, well, fathers always are, aren’t they?” Sister’s voice rose quizzically. “But he’s a man of principle. I don’t know that he would provide an alibi for her. Even if he thought the original murders were an isolated incident, you know, if he was sure she’d never kill again, he wouldn’t help her.”

“Paul’s reports say she stayed at the party, then went to the C&O with Ken. Other witnesses confirm seeing her there.”

“The Bancrofts could pay off the entire county,” Shaker said.

“Oh, come now, someone would talk. Keep a secret for two decades? Not here.” Sister interlocked her fingers. “I agree that Sybil had a financial and perhaps even an emotional incentive, but I don’t think she did it. Had Nola lived, Sybil’s inheritance would still be beyond most people’s wildest dreams.”

“Never underestimate the greed of the rich,” Ben Sidell said. “But you’re right, Sister, that our killer feels we can’t touch him. He’s fooled everybody for twenty-one years. I doubt he’s even that scared now.”

“Pride goeth before a fall,” Sister said quickly. Then she whirled around, as did Shaker, their senses sharper than either Ben’s or Walter’s.

A brush, brush in the cornfield alerted them.

Raleigh and Rooster charged down a row, the stalks bending deeply.

“It’s Clytemnestra and Orestes,”Raleigh informed them.

Encouraged by the canine companionship and hearing the human voices, the large Holstein cow and her calf walked out of the corn, making a squishy sound with each step.

“You two!” Sister was disgusted with them. “Raleigh, Rooster, let’s herd them home with us. We’ll get them over to Cindy’s later.”

“You bet.”The dogs paced themselves behind the two bovines, keeping just out of reach of a cow kick.

“Guess we might as well walk you home, too,” Ben said. “I’ll take down the yellow tape tonight.” He indicated the police tape used to cordon off Hangman’s Ridge. “Nothing else to find here.”

CHAPTER 32

A Titleist golf ball, white, rolled to a stop next to a small grooming brush, bristles full of flaming red fur.

“You thought that golf ball was an egg when you brought it home, didn’t you?”Inky mischievously batted the golf ball.

Charlie, a natural collector of all sorts of objects, replied,“It’s fun to play with, but I don’t think thehumans that play with them have much fun. They curseand throw their sticks. Why do they do it if they hate itso much?”

“Human psychology.”Inky observed the flat-faced species with great interest. For one thing, their curious locomotion intrigued her. She thought of human walking as a form of falling. They’d catch themselves just in time. It must be awful to totter around on two legs.

“They do like to suffer,”Charlie noted.“I believe theyare the only species who willingly deny themselves food,sex, pleasure.”

“And they’re so happy when they finally give in andenjoy themselves.”Inky laughed.

Charlie’s den used to belong to Aunt Netty, but she’d wanted to be closer to the orchard, so she had moved last year. Netty was like a perfectionist lady forever in search of the ideal apartment.

Charlie had enlarged the den. Given his penchant for toys, he needed more space.

“Look at this.”He swept his face against the dandy brush.“Feels really good.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Cindy Chandler. She left it on the top of her tacktrunk. When she forgets potato chips or crackers, that’sthe greatest. Not only does the stuff taste good, the bagscrinkle!”

“Some sounds are so enticing. Sister’s big wind chimes—I like to sit in the garden and listen to them ringing atnight.”

Inky and Charlie, the same age, belonged to two different species of fox. Inky, a gray, was slightly smaller. She could climb trees with dexterity, and in many ways she was more modest than the red fox, who had to live in a grand place, making a conspicuous mound so everyone would know how important he was.

The reds found this lack of show on the part of the grays proof that they were beneath the salt. Nice, yes, but not truly first class. And their conversational abilities missed the mark most times, as well. The reds enjoyed chattering, barking, even yodeling when the mood struck. Grays were more taciturn.

Both types of fox, raised in loving homes, went out into the world at about seven or eight months. The annual diaspora usually started in mid-September in central Virginia.

And both types of fox believed themselves the most intelligent of the land creatures. They allowed that cats could be rather smart, dogs less so. Humans, made foolish by their own delusions of superiority, delighted the foxes because they could outwit them with such ease. Nothing like a small battalion of humans on horseback and forty to sixty hounds, all bent on chasing a fox, to reaffirm the fox’s sense of his own cleverness.

“Charlie, howdidyou disappear in the apple orchard?”Inky had heard from Diana how the red fox evaporated as if by magic, leaving not an atom of scent.

He puffed out his silky chest.“Inky, there I was in themiddle of the apple orchard, fog like blinders, I tell you, the heavy scent of ripe apples aiding me immeasurably.I’d intended to duck into that abandoned den at the edgeof the orchard. You know the one?”She nodded that she did, so he continued.“But along came Clytemnestra andOrestes. And I thought to myself that those hounds, youngentry, mind you, have denned a fox each time they’vebeen cubbing. Getting too sure of themselves. If I simply vanish, they’ll be bumping into one another running incircles, whimpering,‘Where’d he go?’ I jumped on a bigrock and up on Orestes’s back. Up and away.”He flashed his devilish grin.

“You shook their confidence,”she admiringly complimented him,“for which every fox is grateful.”

“The T’s and R’s are going to be very good, I think.Trinity, Tinsel, Trudy, and Trident, Rassle, and Ruthie.Good. And now that the D’s are in their second season, well, we may have to pick up the pace. Aunt Nettywas right.”

“Usually is,”Inky agreed.

Outside, the arrival of soft twilight announced the approaching night.

“Would you like a golf ball?”

“That would be fun.”Inky liked to play.

“I know where she keeps them at Foxglove. It’s a pieceof cake to reach into the golf bag and filch one. And her house dog sleeps right through it.”

“Charlie,”Inky said and blinked,“did you notice anything unusual in that fog when you were riding Orestes?”

“I smelled Ralph. He sent off a strong, strong odor offear. And I heard two other riders moving in different directions. They weren’t together. I know one was Sybil,because I could smell. I couldn’t get a whiff of the otherrider. Too far away.”He rolled upright.“Don’t you findit odd that humans kill one another? To kill for food,well, we must all survive, but to kill members of yourown species? Very nasty.”

“You know, sometimes a vixen will go into a killingfrenzy to teach her cubs how to kill,”Inky soberly said.“I think humans can go into killing frenzies, too, butfor a different reason. I worry that this person mightdo that.”

“Possibly.”Charlie swept forward his whiskers.“Youknow that Cly and Orestes didn’t see the killer or theywould have blabbed to everyone. Cly can’t keep a secret. Cows are dumb as posts.”He laughed.

As the two left the den, Inky wondered if murder was a pleasure for humans the way catching a mouse was a pleasure for her. If so, how could a killer ever stop killing?

CHAPTER 33

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You haven’t lived like one.”

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

“Heart attack?”

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

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

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

“Without the bullets and cannonballs.”

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

“I know,” she simply said.

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

“I inherited a good pack.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 34

Tuesday and Thursday’s hunts, sparsely attended, did little to lift Sister’s spirits. Although hounds worked well together, two young ones rioted on deer. Betty pushed the two back, but the miniriot upset Sister even though she knew the youngsters might stray on a deer during cubbing. Diana was settling in as anchor hound with Asa’s help, and that made up for the miniriot.

Saturday’s hunt, on September twenty-eighth, started at seven-thirty in the morning from Mill Ruins, Peter Wheeler’s old place. Walter lived there under a long lease arrangement of the sort usually seen in England. In essence, he owned the property even though Peter had willed it to the hunt club.

During the year he’d lived there, Walter had already made significant improvements. He’d fertilized all the pastures and replaced the collapsed fences with white three-board fencing. White paint, now lead-free, lasted two years if you were lucky. Walter said he didn’t care, he’d paint the damn boards every two years. He loved white fences. Most folks switched to black, since that paint lasted five to seven years depending on the brand. Board fencing itself lasted fifteen years, give or take.

The horrendous expense of stone fencing was actually practical if you considered its life span. A stone fence might need a tap or two of repair over sixty or seventy years, but if properly built by a master stonesmason, stone fences ought to last for centuries.

One of Walter’s secret dreams was, some fine day, to have the drive to the house lined with two-and-a-half-foot stone fences.

Today, Walter was living another of his dreams. This was the first hunt from Mill Ruins since Peter had lived there. It turned into a crackerjack.

Shaker cast down by the old mill, which was redolent of scent. So many generations of foxes had lived near or under the mill, great blocks of natural stone, wheel still intact, that the address among foxes had a certain cachet, say like Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., or East Sixty-eighth Street in New York.

Considered too tony for grays, the place was inhabited by reds.

Naturally, the hounds found scent at the mill, but they didn’t get far with it since that particular fox had no desire for aerobic exercise.

The day, crystal clear, temperature in the middle fifties and climbing, wasn’t the best day for scent. No frost had been on the ground, and the rains of last week were soaking in, although a deep puddle glistened here or there. The high-pressure system that produced those electric blue skies also sucked away moisture, hence scent.

Had Shaker been a lesser huntsman he might have returned to the mill to find another line. Shaker and Sister thought once you drew a cover, move on, don’t dawdle. Occasionally they could blow over a fox clever enough to lie low as hounds moved through perhaps a trifle too quickly. But more often than not, moving along, especially if your pack had good noses, flushed more foxes than inching through every twig, holly bush, and scrap of moss.

He sat on Gunpowder and thought for a moment as hounds moved along the millrace and back to the strong running stream that fed it.

Gunpowder, wise in the ways of the sport, snorted,“Draw an S. Move up higher and snake down. If youcatch him high, he’ll probably come back low. If you catchhim low, unless he belongs on the other side of this fixture,I bet you he stays low.”

An English huntsman from the Shires will often draw a triangle just like Tom Firr, the great huntsman who perfected this maneuver back in the nineteenth century. And such a cast or draw worked beautifully if your country was neatly divided into squares and rectangles.

America, having been cultivated according to European methods only since the early seventeenth century, wasn’t that neat, that geometric. Plus, the sheer boastful size of the country forced American foxhunters to devise their own methods for seducing foxes out to play.

Whole European nations could fit into one midsized state like Missouri. American foxes took full advantage of their land’s scale as well as the rich woodlands blanketing the East Coast.

Virginia, enriched by the alluvial deposits of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and the James, as well as their many feeders and tributaries, offered wondrous means of escape. A fox could dash over Davis loam, a kind of rich, sandy soil, scramble up on hard rock, a real scent killer, plunge into a forest carpeted with pine needles and pinecones, more scent killer, and then clop down a baked red clay farm road.

Huntsmen and hounds needed to be quick, to be problem solvers, and to respect those venerable English texts while finding their own way. The American way, like Americans themselves, was a little wilder.

Shaker was going to need that wildness.

Sister patiently waited forty yards behind him. Keepsake, very proud to be used instead of Lafayette, Sister’s usual choice for Saturday, pranced. He desperately wanted to show how perfectly he jumped.

Sister liked a horse that knew how to use his or her body. Good conformation, good early training usually gave a horse confidence. A horse in this way is no different from a professional golfer. The golfer perfects the various strokes; the horse perfects the various gaits and also learns to jump with a human on his back. Any horse can jump without a human up there, but the two-legged riders shift their weight, fall up on one’s ears, flop back behind the saddle, slip to the side, jerk the reins, and, worst of all, they yelp and blame the horse.

The horse needs more patience than the human.

Horses liked Sister. She rode lightly. She might make mistakes, but she always apologized. Mostly she stayed out of the horse’s way, for which it was grateful.

And proud as Keepsake was of his form over fences, Sister mostly liked that he didn’t hang a jump. He gathered himself back on his haunches and sailed over, forelegs tucked up under his chin, neat as a pin.

As they hadn’t yet jumped even a cigarette pack, Keepsake fretted.

The field behind her kept quiet. The Hilltoppers also remained silent. Bobby Franklin, that most genial man, ran a tight group. His Hilltoppers didn’t jump fences, but they kept right up behind first flight, led by Sister. It would never do to let these two fields become strung out. No coffeehousing. No skylarking. No using the horse in front of you as a bumper. Bobby moved out, kept it fun, and the Hilltoppers often ran harder than thefield because they needed to find ways around the jumps.

Immediately behind Sister rode Ken, Xavier, Tedi, Ron, Edward, and Walter. Thirty-two others filled out the first flight, with Jennifer and Sari riding tail. Being juniors, they pulled hard tasks, and riding tail was one of them. It was also a fabulous way to learn what to do and what not to do in the hunt field. Whoever rode tail usually picked up the pieces—loose horses, dismounted humans. In most hunts those in the rear were grooms, juniors, and riders on green horses. Often the riders on green horses were the first ones picked up.

Sister, unlike many masters, liked juniors up front, but they had to earn their stripes first. You earned them in the back.

Bobby used his juniors to go forward and open the gates. He figured he’d lose between three and five minutes on every gate, and this time had to be made up, otherwise he’d lose sight of Sister and the hounds. Not good.

There they all sat quiet as mice.

The noise came from St. Just, cawing overhead.“I know where there’s a fox with an infected paw. Youcould kill him.”

“Don’t listen to him,”Dasher warned the young entry.“He’ll lead you to a fox, but he’ll lead you to Hell, too.”

The hounds heard a long, rising blast followed by two short toots.

Trident, still trying to memorize the calls, whispered to his sister, Trudy,“What’s that one?”

“Uh, he’s not calling us back, he’s kind of telling us togo right.”Trudy watched as Asa walked toward the right and crossed the stream.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever remember all the notes,”Trident worried.

“You will,”Delia reassured him.“Watch Asa and Diana. Don’t worry about the strike hounds just yet. You keep your eye on the steady hounds.”

“Why is he moving us out of the streambed? Isn’tscent better down here?”Trinity asked, the white Y on his head distinctive.

“Because the wind has shifted. He’s pushing us intothe wind,”Delia answered.

“Why don’t we just go right down here by the water?” Tinsel asked, a good question.

“The trees, the underbrush are cutting the wind. But upthere”—Delia cocked her head toward higher ground—“it’s a little stiffer. And if we pick it up there, we’ll followit wherever it goes, and if we can’t get anything heading into the wind we can always come back here where itwill be cooler longer. Trust Shaker.”

“Do the other humans know this stuff?”Trident asked.

Delia laughed.“No, dear, they’re just trying to stay ontheir horses.”

“Do the whippers-in know?”Trudy crossed the stream, the clear water chilly.

“Some understand. Others just ride hard,”Delia said.

Asa, now with them, spoke, his voice deep.“It’s an article of faith that every whipper-in believes he or she canhunt hounds—until they have the horn to their lips.”

“Why?”Trinity gracefully leapt an old log.

“Kind of like the difference between a strike houndand an anchor hound. The anchor hound has to knowwhere everyone is and what the fox and humans mightdo. Remember, they’re always behind us. The strikehound pushes out to get the line. That’s all that houndhas to do, have a great nose and great drive. Doesn’thave to have a brain in its head, which I am here to tellyou Dragon does not. So don’t imitate that ass.”

The young ones giggled.

Delia added,“But Cora is smart. She’s got brains andathletic ability. What a nose that girl has.”

Just then Cora found.“Got one!”

Dragon skidded up to her.“Yo yo yo. It’s good.”

“God, I just hate him,”Asa grumbled as the youngsters flew up ahead, all excited.

Delia laughed as she ran with Asa.

Diana, nose down, figured the scent was about an hour old but holding. They’d better make the most of it. She didn’t know who it was. Often she did.

They clambered up the banks, leaving the stream behind, and came into a huge hayfield, sixty acres of cut hay rolled up in huge round bales. This was galloping country.

Sister popped over the tiger trap jump that Walter had built in the fence line. The logs, upright, created a coop, but it looked formidable. In this case it was because Walter was overzealous when he built it. The trap was three feet six inches but looked like four feet. A few people decided to join the Hilltoppers then and there. The rest squeezed hard, grabbed mane, and over they soared.

St. Just swooped overhead one more time, screaming about the fox with the sore paw, but no one was listening. Furious, he pooped on a brand-new velvet cap, then flew away.

Keepsake stretched out, head low, covering ground effortlessly. How he loved open fields, as did Sister. They moved so fast, she had tears in her eyes.

One of Ronnie Haslip’s contact lenses blew out. He cursed but kept right up. He’d jump with that eye closed.

Betty, wisely using the territory, cleared a jump, three large logs lashed together with heavy rope, at the end of the big field. She listened intently. Shaker had blown“Gone Away” when the hounds all broke out of the covert on the line.

Now and then Shaker shouted encouragement. Why ruin the beautiful music of the hounds by blowing all the time?

The riders thundered across the field, took the three-log jump into another pasture, smaller, maybe twentyfive acres.

Hounds ran right out of it, crawling under the fence on the far side or just taking the triple-wide coop in the fence line. The jump, about three feet tall, was a glorious twenty-four feet long.

Shaker and Gunpowder glided over, as did Sister and Keepsake. Behind her, Sister could hear the sound of hooves hitting the earth, the slight jingle of curb chains on bits, the occasional sharp exhalation of breath. She never looked back. Her job was to stay behind the huntsman.

Ron and Xavier took the wide jump in tandem. Neither could resist a little warble of victory. A few people cheered behind them.

The fox, Prescott, one of Target and Charlene’s new litter, hit top speed and hooked sharply left in the woods on the other side of the triple-wide jump.

He dashed over moss, rocks, then ducked into a den carefully placed under the roots of a massive walnut. Earth thrown out everywhere announced his abode.

Hounds marked him.

The T youngsters pushed right up front and Trident even dug in the den.

Shaker dismounted, blowing the triumphant notes of victory as the field rode up.

Within five minutes, after much praise, he was back up on Gunpowder.

“Thought I’d go back to the big meadow, hit the south side where Walter planted corn.”

“Good enough,” Sister answered, smiling.

They jumped back over the three logs, trotted over the smaller pasture, jumped the triple-wide coop. Others thought this a good opportunity to try jumping in tandem or even in threes, like a hunt team.

Since hounds weren’t casting, Sister had pulled up to the side to watch the fun. As masters go, she was strict but not a killjoy. The attempts of the makeshift teams to hit the jump stride for stride was fun to watch. Ron and Xavier got their timing just right.

Ken, Tedi, and Edward almost managed it, and they received big smiles for their efforts.

Sister could hear the light chatter behind her. She knew they’d stop once hounds were cast.

“Remember when Nola and Guy took that jump holding hands?” Ron recalled, laughing.

“I think that was one of the few times I was really jealous,” Ken said. “Sybil and I tried but couldn’t do it.”

Xavier handed his flask around.“Funny. You know what made me jealous? That Guy’s nickname was Hotspur. Ralph and I hated that name. Ever notice how people have to live up or down to their names? Hotspur, impetuous valor. Went right to his head.”

“Who first called him that?” Ken tried to remember.

“I think Nola started it.” Ron licked his lips. Xavier put good stuff in his flask.

“She always had nicknames for everyone,” Xavier said.

“Mustache. That was mine. Shaved it off once we knew she wasn’t coming home.”

A beat followed this.

“Mine was Zorro,” Ron said with a slightly embarrassed grin.

“The Gay Blade?” Ken couldn’t resist.

“I could die laughing.” Ron, sarcastic, handed Xavier back his flask. “No. Because I got into a fistfight at the Phi Delt house and got two black eyes. She said it looked like I wore a mask. Zorro was okay by me.”

“She called Sister ‘Artemis,’ ” Ken remembered.

“And she called you Di Maggio,” Xavier reminded him.

“Oh, she did not.” Ken’s face reddened.

“Big stick.” Ron laughed.

“Like she would know.” Ken really was embarrassed.

“Oh, those tight breeches.” Ron rolled his eyes. “And I’ve only got one contact in, but Ken, the bulge is noticeable.”

“See, I was right, Zorro, the Gay Blade.” Ken laughed.

“Let’s see, she called Sybil ‘Puffin’ when they were little, but I don’t remember any nickname when they were older,” Xavier recalled.

“Big Sis,” Ken replied. “Not original, but it fit. You know, I’ve only glimpsed her once today. Hope she remembers the territory.”

“Sybil? You kidding?” Ron adored Sybil.

“What do you know, Cyclops?” Ken teased him.

“Hey, I can jump better with one eye closed than you can with two open.” Ron winked as he said it.

“Well, you’d better start squinting, buddy, because Sister just took off.” Ken clapped his leg on his horse and shot off after her.

“Damn, that’s what we get for talking!” Ron knew he should have paid more attention to what was going on.

Hounds, now in the cornfield, pushed another fox. This run was brief but invigorating. Hounds, master, and huntsman were well pleased.

They gathered themselves up, riding back to the mill ruins and their trailers.

Sister chatted with Bobby as they walked back. He rode up to her and the Hilltoppers mingled in with the field, always a treat.

“Bobby, as I recall, your childhood nickname was Bruiser. Did it scar you for life?”

He laughed.“No. What made you think of that?”

“Nicknames. I overheard the Three Musketeers back there talking about nicknames. Ron said he thought Guy had to live up to the name Hotspur after Nola gave it to him. Do you really think it was inspired by Shakespeare?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was impulsive.”

“Quick with his fists.”

“Wonder if we’re missing something?”

“Like premature ejaculation?”

“Bobby, that thought never crossed my mind!”

What did cross her mind was Shakespeare’s Hotspur saying, “Why, what a candy deal of courtesy this fawning greyhound then did proffer me!” She felt the killer was handing her and everyone else a candy deal of courtesy.

CHAPTER 35

“Amputate. It’s the only way to save her,” Dr. Middleton gravely said.

Walter and Sister bent over the stainless-steel table where the anesthetized vixen lay. Using Sister’s instructions and a Havahart trap, Walter had caught the red fox with the infected paw.

He’d watched her limping about down by the ruins. When she went off her feed he knew the infection was worsening.

“How much of her paw do you think you’ll need to remove?” Walter stroked the animal’s beautiful head.

“I won’t really know until I get in there and see how far the infection has spread. It’s in the bone, and that worries me. Her white cell count is hitting the stratosphere. I’ve got to do this now.”

“Of course, we must save her. I’ll pay all expenses,” Sister said. She loved all foxes, and this perfect young vixen with her spotless white tip had to be one of Target’s daughters.

“My concern is she won’t be able to survive in the wild.” Dr. Middleton removed his glasses.

A compassionate veterinarian and also a foxhunter, Chris Middleton was a trusted figure in the community.

“She’ll have to live in a kennel, then,” Walter replied. “I can build her a wonderful home with a doghouse, plus I’ll dig a big den for her, too.”

“You’ll have to dig two feet down, lay in the chain-link fence. Even with one paw she’s going to try to dig out.”

“By the time she’s ready to come home, she’ll have everything she needs.” Walter rubbed her ears.

“All right, then. I’ll get to work.”

“Do you mind if I stay?” Walter asked.

“No. Be glad to have you.” Chris was already scrubbing up.

“Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to it, much as I’d like to watch.” Sister reached over and patted the vixen’s side. “You’ll get through this, miss. You’re in good hands.” She looked at Walter and smiled. “Maybe I should say a pair of good hands.”

“He’s smarter than I am.” Walter smiled back. “I only had to learn one animal inside out. He had to learn dozens.”

“Bird bones. Now, that’s something.” Chris pulled on a pair of thin latex gloves. “Walter, scrub up. I might need you.”

“Okay, boys. Walter, call and give me a report.” Sister opened the large, heavy swinging doors, passed down the short hall and back into the waiting room.

Sybil Fawkes, trying to get out the front door with her arms full of a large bag of cat food, was surprised when Sister appeared to open the door for her.“Where’d you come from?”

“Operating room.”

“Not a hound, I hope, or Raleigh?”

“No. Walter managed to trap that injured vixen at his place. Chris’s working on her now.” She flipped up the hatchback of Sybil’s Mercedes wagon.

“Thank you. Usually the girl at the front desk will help me, but today everybody’s busy.” She exhaled heavily. The forty-pound bag of food seemed heavier than usual. She closed the hatch. “Sister, I wanted to tell you that I know I’m not Doug Kinser, but I’m learning a lot out there.”

“I’m grateful for your help and I think you’re doing very nicely.”

“Thank you. I get nervous, you know.”

“No one day is like any other. If you think about it, this is a sport that has no time-outs, no manicured playing field, no time limits. And when I watch other sports, you know how I love baseball and football, I watch man pitted against man. At least, usually it’s men.” She smiled. “But with us, it’s man against fox. Guess who wins?”

“Humbling.” Sybil noticed the dogwoods turning red. “Won’t be long till Opening Hunt.”

“No. I’d guess the first frost is two weeks away, max.”

“Sister, thanks for all you’ve done for Mom and Dad. Me too.”

“Your mother and father helped me get through Ray’s death, and then Big Raymond’s. That’s what friends do, and I am so lucky to have you all for my friends. This is an odd time. Or maybe it’s me. I hope everyone at After All is—”

“Coping?” Sybil filled in for her. “Horrible as it was to find Nola, in a way it was also an ending of sorts. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I called on Frances this morning. She’s bearing up, but she hates that there are people who think Ralph brought this on himself somehow. Maybe it’s easier to think that.”

“Why?”

“Blame the victim. It eases the threat. People are always looking for easy answers, aren’t they?”

“Doyoufeel threatened?”

Sybil paused, then looked Sister straight in the eye.“Yes.”

“Has anyone verbally threatened you?”

“No, but”—she fumbled around for a moment—“I feel watched. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel a tension building.”

“Yes.” Sister knew exactly the feeling.

“And Ken said to me after Ralph’s service, that night, he said this all gets back to Nola and Guy. And then he really upset me because he said some people might think I killed Nola for the inheritance.” Her creamy complexion darkened. “I nearly slapped him, even though he doesn’t believe it. I don’t know when I’ve been that upset. Never.”

“I would be, too.”

“Have you heard that, Sister?”

She didn’t lie. “Yes.”

“You don’t believe it—do you?” Sybil’s voice rose, plaintive.

“No. If you were going to kill Nola you would have done it when you two were teenagers. Like normal siblings.” She smiled, hoping to relieve Sybil.

Tears filled her light blue eyes.“The times I told her I hated her. That I wished she were dead. The time I threw a bottle of Coke at her head. God.”

“You were kids. She gave as good as she got. What about the time she sewed shut the legs on all your breeches just before Opening Hunt?”

“Oh that!” Sybil smiled.

“The time she put ginger under your horse’s tail. That was a rodeo show.”

“I still don’t know how I hung on.” Sybil brightened. “I look at my two boys and wonder how I’ll live through their teens.”

“You will. Everyone lived through your teens and my teens, and well, that’s just how it goes.” She put her hand on Sybil’s forearm. “You said you felt watched. Is there anyone in particular?”

“It’s kind of a general feeling. I guess some people really do think I killed her. Maybe others wonder if I’ll crack under the strain. They don’t think I’m a murderer, or should I say murderess, but you know. Hard times and all that. And maybe I’m supersensitive. I’m jumpy. I can’t help it. I feel this … this … awful creepy something. Like there’s a monster hiding under my bed.”

“Honey, I’m going to ask you a very offensive question. Under the circumstances, I hope you will forgive me.”

“Go ahead.” Sybil wondered what this lady could ever do to offend her.

“Did you ever sleep with Guy Ramy?”

Sybil blinked.“No. That doesn’t offend me, but no. Why?”

“Revenge for all the beaux Nola took, so to speak.”

“Oh that.” Sybil shrugged. “She was beautiful. Kissed by the gods. I knew before first grade that I could never compare with Nola.”

“That must have been very difficult.”

“It hurt like hell. What could I do? She was my sister. I loved her.”

“If it’s any consolation, she loved you, too, and you are also a beautiful woman. But we all paled standing next to Nola. She was like Ava Gardner or Vivien Leigh. Otherworldly beautiful.” She smiled. “Showing my age by my points of reference.”

“Not at all. You’ll never get old.” She changed the subject. “You can tell Mother’s feeling better because she visited the Tarot reader, Madame Pacholi. You know her real name has got to be Smith or Schwartz or something like that. Anyway, Mother had her cards read and a card came up that supposedly represented justice. So Mother feels certain justice will be done. Oh, and you’ll love this. She asked about you, so Madame Pacholi read your cards in your absence. Let’s see, I think some kind of queen came up, but the long and short of it is that you will be foxhunting when you are one hundred. Nifty, huh?”

“Tell that to Crawford Howard.”

They both laughed.

“You know, speaking of being watched, there’s this little screech owl who hangs around our place now and she doesn’t seem to care if we see her. She blinks and winks. And sometimes the big one, the horned owl, will be with her. Maybe we have more mice than we thought.”

“Every now and then I’ll see the little one.” Sister thought the little owl adorable, as long as she kept quiet. “I guess she’s taken a shine to you and Tedi.”

“Oh, she winks at Dad, too.”

“The hussy.”

“Why did you ask if I’d slept with Guy? There’s more to it than revenge.”

“Ken.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Ken found out, he’d have killed Guy.”

A kind of secret pride shot through Sybil, the thought that her husband would kill a man out of jealousy. This rapidly dissipated.“He’s not the type. Ken’s just not that passionate.” She shrugged.

“It’s a funny thing about men. We want them passionate and out of control and then we don’t. One of the great things about getting old is qualities like kindness, humor, reliability, compassion—oh, how sexy they become.”

“Raymond had all those.”

“Actually, he did. But he was a passionate man and rarely met a beauty he didn’t try to conquer, within reason.”

“God, you don’t think he slept with Nola, do you?”

“No.” Sister laughed. “He’d always consider a woman ten years younger, and then when he reached his sixties, twenty years younger, but Nola was always safe. However, I expect your mother had to slap him once or twice and always had the supreme good manners never to tell me.”

“How did you stand it?”

“I loved him. You don’t really know someone until you live with him, and every day Raymond exploded with energy, love of life. That’s why I fell in love with him, and he never lost that energy.”

“He was the most fun. He’d let us kids ride up front sometimes when he led the field. He’d make us feel important.”

“Charm. Irresistible charm.”

“Funny thing, you said you don’t know a man until you live with him. But I think you can live with a man and not know him. I think any two people, whether it’s husband and wife, or lovers, or parents and children, can miss seeing things. And sometimes they’re things everyone else knows.It’s peculiar.” She paused a moment. “You say Ken could have killed Guy out of jealousy. What about Nola? Could she have killed Guy?”

“It’s possible that two different people killed them,” Sister replied.

“One. I believe it was one.”

“I do, too, but I’m letting my mind go anywhere and everywhere.”

“You know I would have never gone to bed with Guy Ramy even if he’d been attracted to me before I got serious about Ken. He was too—flash.”

“That he was.”

“Like a red Corvette. Nola ate that up.”

“When she was sexually done with a man was she really done? She had an affair with Ralph. When it was over, did she leave him alone or would she come back just to exert power over him?”

“Done,” Sybil simply said. “Poor Ralph. I loved him.”

“Childhood friends. The best.” Sister exhaled through her nose.

“And you know what else? I keep thinking about Peppermint, that Pepper led us to Nola. There’s some kind of poetry to that, something I don’t understand, I can’t put it into words, but”—she closed her eyes— “God, I want this to be over!”

“It will be.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“No, but the discovery of Nola’s and Guy’s bodies certainly can’t have added to their killer’s tranquillity. He’s arrogant and opportunistic, but stupid, too. His arrogance has made him stupid. Killing Ralph like that.”

“Maybe he thought it was kill or be killed.” She scuffed at the bluestone in the parking lot. “I hope I get to see him caught and punished.”

“I think every person in our hunt field feels that except one.”

“Who?”

“The killer.”

CHAPTER 36

“She’s going to be fine,” Walker enthusiastically reported to Sister on the vixen’s surgery.

“What good news! We could use a little good news around here,” Sister, on the kennel phone, said warmly.

After more details on the recovery of the vixen, whom Walter had named Bessie, Sister hung up the phone and she gave Shaker a full report. When she was done, she told Shaker something that had been running around, unarticulated, in the back of her mind for quite some time.“You know, it’s the most curious thing, Walter reminds me of Raymond. He even moves like Raymond. Same jaw, square shoulders. He’s a touch shorter and quieter than Raymond, but it’s uncanny. It’s one of those realizations that’s grown on me.” She looked brightly at Shaker. “Haveyou noticed it?”

“Uh, well, I suppose,” Shaker fumbled.

Sister knew in an instant that her huntsman knew more than she did.“Ah.” A long silence followed. “Does Walter know?”

“No.” Deeply embarrassed, he gave a small shrug.

“Shaker, don’t fret. I should have figured it out. It’s as plain as the nose on my face.”

“Things happen.”

“With Raymond they certainly did.” She spoke with conviction, breathed, then smiled. “How did you know?”

“He confessed in a weak moment.”

“Aided by scotch?”

“Scotch and emphysema. He asked me to watch out for Walter.”

“I see. She was pretty, as I recall, Walter’s mother.”

“They were all pretty, but Janie, not one of them was as good a woman as you.” Shaker’s voice rose and he looked her straight in the eye.

“Thank you. But I have my failings.” She glanced down at her hands, the red clay ground within. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

“You weren’t stupid.”

“Not about that.” She smiled sadly. “Not about that. But I think I’ve been half in love with Walter. Now it makes sense.” She dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “Younger men don’t look at older women. I guess I just realized how drawn I am to him.” She sighed. “Love never dies.”

“I don’t know. I’m not good at those things.”

She paused a moment.“Well, I’ve had my revelation. Love never dies.” She fell quiet again, then suddenly sat up and said with much animation, “Shaker, that’s it!”

“What?”

“Love never dies! The killer is still in love with Nola or with Guy.”

CHAPTER 37

For the remainder of the day, Sister felt as though she had a red-hot marble rolling around in her brain. The mental discomfort was excruciating.

When troubled, the stable provided solace.

She brushed down Rickyroo, Lafayette, Keepsake, and Aztec and then turned them out. The horses calmed her, helped her organize her thoughts.

She cleaned out the brushes, hung up the wipe-down towels, inhaled the bracing mix of liniment, hay, andeaude cheval.

Golliwog nestled on a cooler, gray and gold, folded on the huge tack trunk that originally belonged to Raymond’s grandfather, John “Hap” Arnold. Raleigh and Rooster flopped on their sides in a stall and snored, each exhale sending tiny motes of hay dust upward. The large wall clock above the tack room door read three-thirty.

Sister firmly believed the more horses were allowed to be horses the better they behaved. The animal is meant to graze and walk, graze and walk. Being cooped up in a stall, fed all manner of hopped-up grains, makes for a lunatic. She brought them in each morning, and fed them sweet feed in their individual stalls, because each of her boys needed time alone. She also added crimped oats and as much high-quality hay as they would eat. Then she’d go to the kennels to help Shaker feed and clean. By the time she returned, usually after about two hours, each horse had cleaned his plate. Then she turned them back out.

People complimented her on the condition of her horses, their glistening coats, their good hooves. Their eyes were bright, their attitudes cheery.

She replied that her methods were common sense. Avoid fads. Listen to the feed salesmen respectfully, but remember they’re there to sell you a lot of stuff you don’t need. Take excellent care of your pastures and your pastures will take excellent care of your horses. Keep your horses on a routine. Animals, including humans, like a routine, and this includes regular exercise. Be sure you work with the best equine dentist, vet, and blacksmith in the area. While you’re at it, take yourself to the best dentist and doctor, too. You may skip the blacksmith.

Newcomers often asked questions, and Sister was glad when they did. Better to ask than to be taken to the cleaners by the guy who wants to put automatic waterers in your barn or the dealer who wants to sell you a fortune in vitamin supplements. Not that automatic waterers might not be useful for some people and vitamins useful for others, but if you didn’t know horses, thousands of dollars would fly out the window.

One thing never changed. Over the forty years of her mastership she had watched new person after new person buy exactly the wrong horse. The only way to become a foxhunter is to buy a made horse, a seasoned veteran who can teach the human. He’s better than an insurance policy. Heisyour insurance policy. But in all her years, she had only known a handful of people to exhibit such sense. Walter was one. His gelding, Clemson, lacked in the looks department, was a little clunky, even big-headed. He had age on him, but that horse knew his job. He was giving Walter tremendous confidence. Walter could hunt and listen for hounds instead of riding in terror.

The Clemsons of the world should be gold-plated. In their own way they are as much treasures as a Secretariat.

She watched Aztec, Lafayette, Rickyroo, and Keepsake play with one another in their pasture and thought of the people she had come to know through foxhunting. Any hunt club reflects the history of its region. She thought of the older people, her idols from her childhood, her own peers, and now the young ones coming up behind her. She had learned a lot from all those people; she was still learning.

Leaning over the fence, she sniffed the first tang of the odor of turning leaves. The fiery marble in her brain had stopped rolling. She had a plan.

She found Shaker walking puppies, a task requiring strong shoulders since they pulled and leapt about. He smiled as she fell in with him and took a leash from his hands.

“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Shaker, I have an idea. It’s unorthodox, but I think I can bolt our killer from his den, flush him right out. We’ve been running over him, you know.”

“Darby, boy, steady.” Shaker’s low voice quieted a yapping young fellow. “Well, he’s been in the covert, that we know.”

“It’s going to take some work on our part and a little luck.” She was nearly pulled off her feet by Doughboy.

“The luck part”—Shaker’s bushy eyebrows rose— “that’s interesting.”

Before she could spin out her idea, Ben Sidell drove onto the farm. He cut the motor, stepped outside the squad car, and walked over to them.“Afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Ben. What can we do for you?” Sister set her feet wide so Doughboy couldn’t yank her off balance again.

“Wanted you to know the gun that killed Ralph was a .38. Can’t trace it, so it has to be an old gun sold before registrations or one sold on the black market.”

“What about the used market?” Shaker knew you could buy a used side arm without going through the computer checks.

“Possible. Do you have people in your field who carry guns?”

“Yes. Both whippers-in carry a .22 filled with ratshot which, I am happy to say, they have not had occasion to use for years, and Bobby Franklin carries a .38 hidden in his jacket.”

“Why?”

“We don’t want to upset people,” Sister forthrightly replied.

“No, I don’t mean that.” Ben stifled a smile as he folded his arms across his chest. “I mean, why would he carry that caliber? Why not a .22?”

“Should a horse break its neck, or a hound, we want to end its suffering as soon as possible. And again I’m happy to say the last time we had to do so was in 1984.”

Shaker added,“And sometimes the deer hunters don’t finish the job. They don’t track their deer, or it gets away. We have to kill them.”

“Very upsetting.” Sister reached down to pat Doughboy, who sat quietly observing the sheriff. As he was only five months old, she was very proud of him.

“I see. Well, I would imagine that many of your members have old weapons.”

“Probably.” Sister’s voice rose upward.

“You have members, older members, many of whom might have guns that they bought back in the fifties or sixties.”

“I suppose. What would you like me to do?”

“Get them. I want to test them. I can go to each house and demand them, but I think the most efficient method is to have you ask for them.”

“I’d be glad to do that. Did you drive the whole way out here to ask me that?”

“Uh, yes.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And”—he paused a moment—“it’s such a beautiful place here. I like visiting your farm. And I was wondering if you might advise me, which I will keep to myself because I realize the position you’re in, I was kind of wondering if you could suggest someone I could ride with—take lessons, that is.”

“Ah.” She smiled, as did Shaker. “Lynne Beegle. Actually, I should ask what kind of riding.”

“Foxhunting. The more I find out about this sport, the more it intrigues me. It’s complicated.”

“Oh, just keep the horse between your legs.” Shaker laughed.

“There is that.” Ben smiled.

“As I recall, Ben, you’re from Ohio, and there are some good hunt clubs there. Rocky Fork Headley, Chagrin Valley, Miami Valley, Camargo, Grand River, and Gully Ridge. And they’ve been there for a long time. I think Chagrin Valley was founded in 1908.”

“Camargo and Rocky Ford Headley were founded in 1925,” Shaker added.

“How do you remember all that?”

“You tend to remember what you like. I just thought you might have seen hunting in Ohio.”

“No. Not until I got here.”

“Well, it’s a way of life in Virginia.”

“A way of death, too,” Ben commented, a wry tone to his voice. “You don’t need to hunt the fox, you’re so busy hunting one another.”

Sister exhaled, which brought Doughboy’s ears up. He looked at her quizzically. “These truly are extraordinary circumstances.”

Shaker murmured his agreement with that statement.

After Ben drove away, the two walked the puppies back to the puppy palace, as they called it.

“Want to hear my plan?”

“Can’t wait.”

CHAPTER 38

“Janie, are you sure?” Tedi’s lovely blue eyes were sorrowful.

“Yes. But I can’t prove a thing yet.”

Tedi, Edward, Walter, Shaker, and Sister sat around Sister’s kitchen table. She had thrown together a quick dinner for them. Each had come with the express instructions to tell no one where they were going that night. Not a soul.

Sister started the bowl of peas around to the left.“Tedi and Edward, I know this is most disquieting.”

“We’ll handle it.” Edward spoke with authority.

“The killer has to be Sybil, Ken, Xavier, or Ron. If you think about each one, each has benefited since Nola’s and Guy’s deaths. When Ron first hung out his lawyer’s shingle, you used him and you also switched insurance over to Xavier. Right?” Walter asked.

“Right.” Edward nodded. “Ken encouraged us, and both men gave us very good service.”

“They all ran around together,” Tedi added. “Our support in the early stages of their business lives was beneficial.”

“And would it be possible for Sybil to divert some of her monies to either Ron or Xavier without either of you knowing about it?” Sister added.

“Up to a point,” Edward succinctly replied. “If the sums were excessive, I think I’d know.”

“I’ve been thinking about Hotspur.” Sister changed the subject. “The only way that Henry IV could defeat him was to divide and conquer. He picked Hotspur off before he could join up with his father. Had the two been united, Sir Henry Percy’s father would have sat on the throne. They were much better soldiers than the king. I believe our killer separated Nola and Guy. She’d been unfaithful to Guy.”

Edward interrupted,“But it’s not like she was married to him!”

“No, but love isn’t rational. It would seem to me that both Nola and the killer had something to lose. Nola would lose Guy, and she had finally fallen in love with Guy. What the killer would lose, I don’t know. If we knew the answer to that I think we’d solve this.” Sister looked at Walter; she couldn’t stop staring at him, but she made sure he didn’t see her doing it. “Well, perhaps I make too much of this Hotspur thing. My mind works in fits and starts. They don’t all lead in the right direction, but they do fire me up.”

“Me too.” Shaker reached for the fried chicken, then handed the plate to Tedi on his left. “And I find the older I get the more wood I need to get fired up. Sister, let’s get down to brass tacks here.”

“Well, yes. I digress. I want Walter to grow a military mustache or paste one on and play a key part. And I want us to find two actors who can ride who resemble Guy and Nola.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Edward sat up straight in his chair.

“Maybe there isn’t much of it left to lose. Now hear me out before you become ruthlessly logical, Edward. I believe our killer is still in love with Nola or Guy. We’ve got to shake him or her out of the covert. Bolt our fox.”

“Ah.” Walter was getting it, as was Tedi.

“Perhaps you have noticed how much Walter resembles Raymond. With a mustache, the resemblance will be impossible to miss.”

All eyes were on Walter, who blushed.

“Uncanny.” Tedi blinked.

“Remember Raymond’s big hunter, A. P. Hill? Found a horse who looks much like him and is very kind.” She smiled at Walter. “We’ll take care of you, Walter.” She said to the others, “I want to place Walter far enough away so when he is glimpsed—and it will be just a glimpse—people won’t really know if they’ve seen him or not. And I want Nola and Guy together down by Cindy’s two ponds at Foxglove Farm. There’s got to be someone we can use—call Central Casting, if we must. I want to blast this murderer into the open. Let us resurrect our dead. They’ll beckon to the killer. However, we can’t use a Ralph standin. We can’t do that to Frances.”

“It’s lunacy.”

“Edward, we have no hard evidence. I’d rather be a lunatic than do nothing,” Tedi said, touching Nola’s ring.

Sister softly said, a bit of humor in her voice as she hoped to defuse Edward’s resistance, “I know, Edward, you won’t overestimate my faculty for constructive thought. I’ve had to resort to imagination.”

“Well, I’ll do it,” Walter said with determination.

“You lead the field. What are you going to do when people see these apparitions?” A note of sarcasm dripped into Edward’s voice.

“Maybe I won’t see these apparitions.”

“Ah. You’ll be up front. By the time someone tells you, they’ll fade away.” Tedi was catching on.

“Sybil will be whipping-in that day.” Edward could not believe for one instant that his daughter was a killer.

“I’ll put her in the field and let Jennifer whip. She doesn’t know but so much, but she knows enough to keep the hounds between her and the huntsman. Can’t ask for more than that. Will you all help me?” She touched Shaker’s forearm as they had discussed it. She knew he would do it, and Walter had just agreed.

“I will. I’ll do anything to get Nola’s killer, and this will clear Sybil’s name. I know people suspect her. The gossip eventually seeps under the door.”

“Impossible! Sybil would never have killed Nola.” Edward’s face turned crimson. “I can’t believe anyone would say something like that about Sybil.”

“I’m willing to try anything.” Tedi leaned toward Sister. “I’ll help you find our Guy and Nola. I have all of Nola’s clothes.”

“And we can all pray,” Sister breathed in. “A bit of mist. Just a bit.”

CHAPTER 39

Sister and Tedi worked like demons.

Tedi, thanks to friends in the film business, found two physically appropriate actors who could ride a little. She flew them to Richmond. Her friend, senior master of the Deep Run Hunt, Mary Robertson, put them up so no one would see them back in Jefferson Hunt territory. She also, prudently, worked with them a bit on their riding.

Actors, eager for employment, regularly overstate their credentials. The young lady, Melissa Lords, had ridden once or twice in a Western saddle.

Mary had her work cut out for her. But she’d managed to get the beautiful Melissa somewhat comfortable at the trot.

When Tedi drove down to check on their progress, she burst into tears at the sight of Melissa.

The actor, Brandon Sullivan, had more riding experience. His fabulous looks kept the barn girls in a twitter.

Mary would deliver the horses, Melissa, and Brandon to Roughneck Farm early in the morning of the hunt. She’d ride as a guest that day. This would stir no suspicions, as Sister often drove down for a day’s sport at Deep Run and Mary Robertson, Tom Mackell, Red Dog Covington, and Ginny Perrin, the joint-masters, returned the favor.

Walter would park in the hay shed to hide his truck that morning.

Sister chose the day by calling Robert Van Winkle, the weatherman, a local celebrity who had a genuine passion for studying weather.

He told her there might be a bit of ground cover October fourth or fifth. An edge of chilly air should be cutting into central Virginia then.

True to her word, she asked the membership to allow the sheriff to test their .38s. People complied with her request. Nothing came of it, which was no surprise.

She called Alice Ramy in Blacksburg and told her if any wild rumors reached her at Virginia Tech or back home, to dismiss them until they could talk.

By Thursday, October third, she felt they were as ready as they’d ever be. It was still warm with azure skies. She fretted over the weather.

That afternoon she and Shaker walked out puppies.

“Had a good look at Sari Rasmussen’s mother yet?”

Shaker rolled his eyes.“A meddlesome woman.”

“Me or Lorraine?”

“You.” He laughed. “I’ve spoken to her a few times— when she comes by to pick up Sari. I’m starting to like the days when Jennifer’s car breaks down.”

“Good.”

They walked along, praising the young ones. Clouds of butterflies whirled upward from the horse manure in the farm road. Small butterfly umbrellas of yellow, orange, milk white, and rust attracted the puppies’ attention as they passed.

“Nervous?”

“Yes,” Sister answered truthfully.

“I still think you should give Ben Sidell a heads-up.”

“I don’t know. He’d be wasting an entire morning. Nothing may happen.”

“The problem is, if something does flare up, if we do rock the killer’s world, it could get real ugly. You carry your gun.”

“I will.”

“Let’s stroll through the orchard. Won’t hurt these chillun’ to smell apples.”

The boughs of the old trees bent low, their bounty ready for picking. The Mexicans specializing in such small orchards were due next Monday. A young enterprising fellow, Concho, contracted with the small orchards, and his business was booming.

Puppies lifted their heads, nostrils wide open. The rich fragrance of apples greeted them as it did the humans. However, the hounds could also smell the different types of insects there as well as all the various types of bird droppings. Their experience of the orchard was richer than that of humans’, whose senses were duller.

The hound pads pattered over the grass, creating a rhythm. Their light panting provided a counterpoint. The heavier tread of Sister and Shaker sounded like a backbeat.

Once out of the orchard they headed back toward the kennels.

“Occurs to me we are putting down a T cross.” Shaker finally spoke.

“Uh-huh.” Sister felt the warm sun on her back like a friend’s hand, reassuring.

Sometimes, especially if the summer or fall lacked rainfall, the earth packed hard like brick. Getting a line of scent proved damnably difficult. Older hounds, having endured bad scenting conditions, stuck it out, kept trying. Younger hounds became frustrated more easily. Cubbing season coincided with rutting season for deer, so their odor was intensified and tempted young ones. If they couldn’t find fox scent why not try this other heavy, powerful aroma, so powerful even humans could smell it.

Whippers-in would crack their whips, pushing back the“bad kids” if they could reach them. The thick coverts of Virginia sometimes delayed a whipper-in and hounds skedaddled.

Staff could forgive a hound breaking once and needing to be corrected. Touching a deer twice, the proper word being touching not chasing, called for other measures.

Sister and Shaker would get the whippers-in or two trusty members to lay a T cross of scent.

Early in the morning, the dew heavy on the meadows, one person would put down fox scent. The line ended up in a glorious pile of dog cookies.

Crossing this just like a T bar would be a line of deer scent. This line led directly to a thick covert. One or two persons hid in there with noisemakers and ratshot.

Deer scent and fox scent can be purchased at hunting stores. Whoever handled the potent little bottles needed to be careful or they’d reek for days.

If hounds broke at the cross of the T and headed to the covert, an unpleasant surprise awaited them. The humans hollered at them, fired ratshot in the air. If a hound occasioned to be particularly thickheaded, persisting in pushing the deer scent, a little peppering of ratshot on the nether regions cured him.

Usually, the cacophony startled the hounds and they turned tail quickly, joining their comrades who stuck to fox scent.

By the time the group reached the cookies they knew they had made the right decision.

The foxhound is a problem solver, a most intelligent creature. It remained the province of the human to make sure that the hound solved the problem correctly and was properly rewarded for it.

“If this works and the killer goes on the false scent, you’ll be in high cotton.” He opened the chain-link gate to the puppy run. “ ’Course if that doesn’t work you are going to have a lot of people spring-loaded in the pissedoff position.”

“I know.” She shut the gate as the last young one scooted in.

“Even if you don’t see anything, by the time you get back to the trailers there will be questions. For all I know, these two actors will be back there waiting for their Oscars.”

“Well, they’re supposed to come back here.”

“Boss, Murphy’s Law.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t you think I’ve gone over this until I’m dizzy? I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She said this in a good-natured way.

He sighed.“Maybe it’s a blessing we don’t know the future.”

CHAPTER 40

Hounds’ voices pleased hounds and humans, but Golly thought them cacophonous. Her oh-so-sensitive ears could listen to Bach or to the sound of a can of cat food being opened but not to hounds. She avoided the kennels on hunt mornings. The hounds in the draw pen exuded a state of rare excitement. The ones left behind howled piteously.

Only after everyone settled down would she venture forth, pushing open her cat door, next to the much larger doggie door. She’d sit just outside looking left, right, up, and down with an air of studied superiority. Then, every move considered, she would daintily walk to her destination.

This morning, Saturday, October fifth, she sat outside despite the noise at the kennels. This was the day the Jefferson Hunt would hunt Foxglove Farm.

Walter, Melissa Lords, and Brandon Sullivan had arrived at the barn at six-thirty A.M. Each person so resembled the deceased that the effect was startling even without a mist. And Robert Van Winkle’s forecast had been on the money. A cold front nudged through, and thin fog hugged the creeks and swales. Walter, knowing the territory, led Melissa and Brandon to their places.

Raleigh and Rooster sat with Golly, watching the activity.

“Why don’t you jump in the back of the pickup?” Rooster suggested to Raleigh, who could jump much higher than he could.

“She’d see me and make me get out.”Raleigh sneezed as a whiff of goldenrod tickled his nose.

“Dirty pool. We get stuck here and hounds get to go—and on such an important morning,”Rooster grumbled.

Golly knew her human.“She’ll put you in the tack room if you don’t behave and you won’t go anywhere.You sit tight. Once they move off you’ll have to circle inthe woods, but you can do it if you want to follow.”

Rooster looked at Raleigh, who lay down, putting his elegant head on his paws.“I don’t like one thingabout this.”

Rooster grumbled,“I bet those good-for-nothing redfoxes won’t run. On top of everything else, a blank day.” He closed his eyes on“blank.”

Golly replied,“You never know what a fox will do.But Sister needs you.”

“Thought you could take or leave humans,”Raleigh wryly said.

Golly puffed out her chest, showing off her long, silky fur. She was vain about her coat, but then she was vain about everything.“This is hardly the time to mock me,Raleigh. You know perfectly well that I love Sister. I justdon’t see the reason to fawn and slobber over her as youdo.”Her ears twitched forward.“There they go. Hurry!”

The meet was at eight. It was now seven. As the light changed and the temperature dropped, the first cast time would be pushed from seven-thirty to eight and then finally to nine in the morning, except for the High Holy Days. People needed more time on those days since everyone and their horses had to be perfectly turned out. Braiding manes and tails took a long time on a frosty morning. Fingers ached.

Not that the members of the Jefferson Hunt didn’t sparkle and shine even during cubbing, but braids were not called for, nor silk top hats. And even though it was probably a trick of the mind, brown boots always seemed to clean up faster than black ones.

As soon as the“party wagon” filled with hounds pulled out, followed by the horse trailer, Raleigh and Rooster took off for Foxglove Farm.

Sixty-three people gathered at Foxglove. As hounds were decanted from their trailer, the whippers-in, Betty and Jennifer, stood with them. Members and guests hurried to tighten girths, find hairnets, knock the dust off jackets.

By the time the hounds walked to Cindy Chandler’s graceful stable—with its whiskey barrels filled with mums and baskets of hanging flowers outside, her turquoise and black stable colors painted on each outside beam— everyone was mounted.

Some hunts insisted that staff wear scarlet even during cubbing. At other hunts, staff wore red shirts. And there were those hunts whose staff turned out in tweeds. The Jefferson Hunt staff wore informal kit. After Opening Hunt they would ride exclusively in scarlet even on informal, also called ratcatcher, days.

Although many people erroneously believe there is an absolute standard for hunt attire, in truth, the standard is set by each individual hunt. There was a hunt in Florida, before World War II, that rode in white. Considering the climate, a sensible choice.

As Sister trotted forward to greet the riders, the hounds looked up at her but dutifully stayed with Shaker.

Raleigh and Rooster, who had sped across the sunken meadows, lurked behind the hay barn. Both canines considered their early run just a romp. They were ready for more.

Sybil, curiously, wore an old jacket of Nola’s, a dark blue fabric with rust windowpane woven through it. When her mother commented on it, Sybil said she’d left her lightweight cubbing jacket at her house so she’d grabbed one of her sister’s. All extra coats, jackets, vests, and stock ties were kept in the stable closet at AfterAll. Tedi wondered if Sybil had noticed a missing jacket and derby. Her darker question, of course, was just what did Sybil know?

Ken, too, commented on her attire. Both her mother’s and her husband’s questions irritated her. Half the field was too young to remember Nola’s clothing and the other half had seen her in her sister’s jackets before. She dismissed them and said everyone was too jittery. Ken soothed her by saying how happy he was to be riding in the field with his wife for a change.

“Good morning. Welcome, visitors. I see some friends from other hunts.” Sister smiled. “I’m thrilled to have the senior master of Deep Run with us today, Mary Robertson.”

Mary smiled.“Glad to be here.” She, too, had butterflies.

“I see some friends from Rockbridge Hunt and Glen-more Hunt, Keswick and Farmington. Welcome.” She turned to her hounds. “You children better find Mr. Fox and show everyone good sport.”

“No problem,”Dragon shot off his big mouth.

“God, I hate him!”Asa repeated his leitmotiv, voice low.

“I’d be remiss if I did not thank our hostess today. Cindy Chandler, thank you for allowing us to hunt Foxglove.”

Cindy, immaculately turned out, replied,“My pleasure. Don’t forget the breakfast afterward. There’s fried okra.”

Crawford involuntarily grimaced, which made Sister laugh. Most Northerners couldn’t abide this particular southern specialty.

Tendrils of mist curled through the lowlands. The long rays of the rising sun painted the buildings with scarlet and gold. The temperature was a cool forty-five degrees. It was beginning to feel like hunt season!

Traditionally, the master decides on the first cast. In many hunts, the master isn’t a true hound person and so agrees with whatever the huntsman suggests. Sister, loving her hounds beyond all measure, would sit down with Shaker the night before a hunt and plan the day’s hunt.

Plan your hunt; hunt your plan.

The advantage of this over the years was that each person developed an appreciation for the other’s mind. Sister might suggest going low on a windy day, and Shaker might remind her the muck on that particular bottom would be rough sledding. Try high first even with the wind. They’d bat ideas back and forth, they’d check the humidity, the wind, the temperature. They’d obsessively watch The Weather Channel, then sit down, grumbling that those people knew nothing about the weather hard by the mountains, which could change in the bat of an eye.

They’d devise their plan, rise early in the morning, open their window, or hurry out the front door to check the weather. Had there been a light frost? It would occur up here before it would in town. Did the wind change? What was the speed and direction? If Nature decided to change her clothes overnight, the two of them could alter their plan to suit. Both people were flexible and both were true hunters. They worked with Nature as their partner. People who slaved in air-conditioned offices, drove home in cars with air-conditioning or heated seats, had mostly forgotten that humans don’t control Nature. If she shifts, you shift with her.

Today’s plan was to cast eastward, over the rolling hayfields, past the huge old chestnut. If scent held on the pastures it ought to be a hell of a day. If not, they’d comb through the woods, good trails throughout, and surely hit a line.

They’d go east to the one-room schoolhouse at the edge of Cindy’s property. By then, people and horses would be relaxed. Walter would appear then disappear in the swale before the schoolhouse. Then they would turn northward, making a semicircle until reaching the waterwheel at the twin ponds, one above the other. Mist ought to be thickest there. Melissa and Brandon would be the wraiths of the ponds.

The cast they’d devised kept the wind glancing at them at about a ninety-degree angle up to the schoolhouse. Turning there, hounds would be heading full into the breeze.

“Think they’ll hit?”Raleigh deferred to Rooster, who as a harrier possessed more knowledge of hunting.

“Shouldn’t take long. This place is crawling with foxes.” Rooster lifted his head.“Crawling.”

Inky, sitting in the hayloft, the top door open to keep the hay fresh, looked down.“Didn’t crawl. I climbed.”

“Inky, what are you doing here?”Raleigh liked the small black vixen.

“Well, it’s not like I live that far away. Curiosity gotthe better of me.”

“Who will give them the first run?”Raleigh asked.

“Yancy. If he poops out, Grace is fishing down by thewaterwheel ponds.”

The waterwheel ponds, built by Cindy for practicality and beauty, had a small waterwheel that kept the water moving between the two levels of the ponds. Grace, Charlie’s sister, would fish there for hours.

Cindy would watch through her binoculars. Grace’s Christmas present was a juicy salmon placed outside her den.

“Rooster, come on.”Raleigh loped toward the sound of the horn.“See you later, Inky.”

The two house dogs hurried past the stable, past the freshly painted outbuildings, down the fenced paddocks, and out into the larger pasture. They need not have hurried, for the hounds were drawing northward in a thin line of trees lining the creek, twenty yards at the widest point.

A heavy gray cloud cover began to creep over the Blue Ridge Mountains. This would help hold scent down— and the temperature.

Uncle Yancy heard them coming. He waited by the fence line at the chestnut tree pasture. He’d give them another five minutes, then he’d walk across the pasture, mark the chestnut tree, trot to the in and out jumps on the road, go over them, and then run all the way to the old schoolhouse. He’d dive into the den under the schoolhouse. That ought to get everyone’s blood up.

Back in the covert, Ruthie wrinkled her nose.“What’sthis?”Tears filled her eyes.

Delia touched her nose to the spot.“Skunk. Don’t gothere, dear.”

Her brother took a whiff and his eyes watered, too.

“Mmm.”Cora inhaled the musky fox odor of Yancy.

Dasher ran past his brother, irritating him, put his nose down, then bellowed,“Dog fox! Yippee.”

“Just wants to show off for the Saturday crowd,” grumbled the king of show-offs, Dragon.

“You poor baby.”Asa bumped him as he ran by, which only irritated Dragon more.

Seeing the handsome young hound snarl, Betty, on the left bank of the narrow creek, said quietly,“Dragon.”

“I know. I know.”He put his nose down and hollered in his pleasing voice,“Good. Good. Good.”

Shaker blew three sharp“rat-ta-tats,” which brought together the other hounds that had been fanning away from that spot. They all ran in, put their noses to the ground, then opened, honoring Dasher and Cora.

Dasher, now in the front, was quite proud. He usually deferred to his brother, a bully, but today the glory was his, and Cora let him have it. Even if she picked the line first, it was okay that he opened, it would build his confidence.

Shaker now blew“Gone Away,” one of the happiest series of notes a human can blow on a horn. Each longish one-note blast is topped by doubled or tripled notes. Usually three such bars suffice, but in his excitement, a huntsman who is a true windbag can go on and on and on. You’d think they’d pass out from light-headedness.

The members of the field squared their shoulders. The Hilltoppers, right behind them, also put their heels down and lifted their chins.

Sister waited until the last hound, Tinsel, cleared the covert. Having somehow gotten turned around in the excitement, Tinsel finally went right and Sister then squeezed Lafayette. Off they flew.

Lafayette, her usual Saturday horse, earned that honor by virtue of his brains, his beauty, and his smooth gait. Aztec and Rickyroo were still young and learning their trade. Keepsake, at eight, was a wonderful horse who did whatever Sister asked of him. She took Keepsake to other hunts because he would ride in the field without fussing. Lafayette had to be first. He believed deep in his heart that everyone was there to see him.

Over the cut hay pasture, over the coop in the fence line, over the still uncut hayfield with the chestnut tree, over the in and out with the usual rubs and tumps and oomphs. Over the next field and over its jump and down into the thin, parked out woods, the underbrush cleared away, with another trickly creek. Splashing through the creek, cantering alongside the fence, then over the sliprail jump, a little airy, and down a steep incline to another jump at the bottom. This one usually scared the bejesus out of people since you approached at a slight drop and you landed on a bigger drop. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the only way. Down and over Sister and Lafayette went. Oh, how Lafayette loved drop jumps, because they let him stay airborne longer. And on to another hayfield cut so trim, it looked like a front lawn. The three-board fence around it had a freshly painted black coop.

Sister could see Jennifer way at the other side of this field on her right. There was a coop there, and the girl took it in good form as she moved along with hounds but far out of their way. Jennifer was having the time of her life.

Shaker, in his element, screamed encouragement to the hounds, his horn tucked between the first and second button of his brown tweed jacket, his forest green tie a little bunched up behind the horn.

After Sister and Lafayette cleared the coop, she turned to glance behind. Mary Robertson was right behind her. She thought to herself how good her field was. They put the visitors before themselves, and no one had to be told to do it.

As she approached the swale, frothing with mist, she slowed to trot along the edge before heading down into it.

As they had planned, Walter rode up out of the mist onto the far side of this low pasture.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye. On a horse like A. P. Hill, a stout handsome hunter, Walter looked so much like Raymond, she couldn’t hold back a tear.

She pressed on. A murmur behind her swelled and she heard a gasp.

Xavier’s voice came out of the mist. “Did you see that?”

Tedi simply replied,“I’m not sure. It’s too strange.”

By the time the field came up out of the swale, the schoolhouse now in view, a few riders were bug-eyed. Sybil came up alongside her mother; they were still cantering.

“Mother, did you—”

“Yes.”

As the pace again increased, conversation decreased.

Uncle Yancy paused at the door to the schoolhouse long enough for everyone to admire him, then he ducked under the stone steps into the den.

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,”he sang in his reedy voice.

Dragon, there first, started digging.“Yancy, you pushyour luck.”

“Three blind hounds, three blind hounds, see how they run, see how they run—” Yancy threw in vibrato for effect.

“Come on out!”Diana called in as she dug next to her brother.

“When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls.”Yancy loved the sound of his own voice.

“Good hounds, Good hounds.” Shaker praised them, then blew “Gone to Ground.”

Jennifer held Hojo’s reins. Usually Shaker took Gunpowder on Saturdays, but he wanted to see how his younger horse would handle the crowd. Handled it just fine. Shaker scanned the field, saw a few of them whispering excitedly. A few wondering whether to speak to Sister about what they thought they’d seen.

“Dragon, come on, boy.”

“Yancy! Yancy, you’re a coward. Show your face.”

“When I’m calling you-oo-oo-oo,”Yancy imitated Nelson Eddy. It was not a success.

Dragon blinked as he heard the“oo-oo-oo.”

Shaker pulled his tail.“Dragon, come on, fella. You’re a good hound.”

“Some of us don’t agree,”Asa barked.

Out came Dragon, dirt all over his face, to the cheers of the humans. He looked around at the other hounds, then at the humans.“I am the greatest!”

Shaker patted each head, sure to let the young entry know they could not have accomplished this victory without them. Then he nimbly vaulted up into the saddle, winked at Sister, called his charges, and headed northwest into the breeze, exactly as planned. By now, the cloud cover was overhead, but the eastern sky was still clear. The effect was dramatic.

As they rode across the beautiful pasture, rambling roses clambering over some of the fence, Bobby Franklin spied Raleigh and Rooster. Hearing the excitement, they’d come out into the pasture instead of staying in the woods. Bobby hadn’t seen “Raymond,” but the buzz reached him. He figured it was some type of illusion, but he did note that Walter was absent. Being an instinctual creature, he shut up. He sensed something was afoot. He became veryalert.

As hounds weren’t cast yet, Bobby gave the field over to Kitty English, a reliable person, and rode up to Sister.

“Sister, Raleigh and Rooster are here.” He turned in the saddle and pointed to where the two house dogs, in their excitement, had revealed themselves.

The two culprits hurried back toward the woods, but too late.

“Those devils!” Sister fumed. “Well, there’s nothing to do for it now. Thanks for telling me.”

“And Sister,” he whispered, “a few people think they saw, in the mists, Raymond on A. P. Hill.”

“Trust me, Bobby. It’s going to be a strange day.”

“Okay.” He touched his cap with his crop and rode back to the Hilltoppers.

Hounds moved on, a little scent here and there but picking.

Grace, down at the waterwheel ponds, heard them. She’d been fishing when Melissa and Brandon, led by Walter, took up their position on the far lip of the upper pond. The soft lap of the waterwheel had covered the sounds of their arrival, but Grace moved away before they reached the pond. She crept back because they didn’t speak. Her experience with humans was they just had to yak.

As she silently circled them, Melissa’s horse swept his ears forward and back. He snorted, stamping his foot. She made a little sound.

Brandon whispered,“Pat his neck.”

They sat there in the swirling silver mists while the air danced over the ponds. Grace was astonished.

She stayed behind them until she heard hounds coming. Then she trotted over by the waterwheel and dipped down into the meadow heading back toward the stables, which were one mile away. Fishing was good and she wanted to get back to it, so she thought she’d run to the first den between the ponds and the stable, which was a large entrance on the creek embankment.

Grace usually didn’t mind giving the foxhunters some fun, but today she preferred fishing. She tracked across the ponds pasture, swallowed in ground fog, rubbed against a fence post, and walked along the top of a fallen log. She put down so much scent that if one of the humans got down on all fours, he’d smell it, too.

Cora had reached the waterwheel, gently turning, each large cup of water spilling to the pond below. The sound alone was better than any tranquilizer. She smelled the two horses and riders, then saw them. They frightened her for a second. She let out a gruff little yelp.

Diana came right to her.“Why aren’t they riding?”

“Don’t know. But they rode past the kennels at seven.The lady is very nervous. Let’s take the pack up ahead. I’mpretty sure we can pick up scent there. It’s fresh.”Cora put her nose down.

Melissa’s horse had quieted, but she was so frightened, he began to worry and jig a little.

Brandon whispered,“Remember, smile. Pick up your reins a little. Our horses might want to join the others.”

A smile froze on Melissa’s gorgeous face, moist with mist.

Cora and Diana loped along the pond embankment, then tore down the side of it.

Shaker flanked the embankment. He said, as much for Melissa and Brandon as for his pack,“You’ll get ’em!” He dipped deep into the cauldron of mist rising over the twin ponds, then he, too, dropped into the pasture, rivers of mist snaking through it, silver stripes next to green.

Within thirty seconds, horn blowing, hounds baying, the field reached the waterwheel ponds.

Edward, even though he knew Melissa and Brandon stood in the mists, was shocked when he caught a glimpse of them. Melissa, the spitting image of Nola, stopped his heart. He sucked in his breath.

Tedi, all steely resolve, refused to cry.

Ron Haslip, overwhelmed, blurted out loud,“Guy! Guy and Nola!”

Xavier pitched forward on his horse.

Sybil screamed.

Ken stopped, so all the horses behind him had to stop, too.

Walter, hiding in the woods near the pond, imitated a mourning dove. That was the signal for Melissa and Brandon to evaporate into the shroud of silver.

Raleigh and Rooster stuck with Walter.

Just like remembering blocking on a stage, Melissa and Brandon turned their horses’ heads. They disappeared as St. Just cawed overhead.

Chills ran down people’s spines.

Although hounds were running, people couldn’t help it. They started talking.

Sister, pretending not to see or know, said quite firmly,“Hark!”

The field shut up and followed her, but she and they could feel a force building, a long hidden emotion.

Hounds flew to the creek, which meandered into the pasture closest to the stables, finally feeding into Broad Creek not far from where Broad Creek crossed Soldier Road. Grace ducked into the den.

Clytemnestra and Orestes in the back pasture heard hounds moving closer.

“I’ll crash this fence!”Clytemnestra loved any act of destruction.

With a moo of rapture, Clytemnestra lowered her head, crashing through the three-board fence as though it were matchsticks. Then she frolicked past the stables, hind end higher than her front end; she even turned a circle. Orestes followed suit.

As the hounds and Shaker appeared out of the mists streaking toward the creek, Clytemnestra put on a tremendous show, mooing, bucking, prancing, a mockery of ballet.

“Bloody cow,” Shaker said.

“Happy one.”Delia, at the rear, giggled.

The field, close behind Shaker and the hounds, didn’t laugh at Clytemnestra’s antics. They’d seen too many strange sights.

As the field began to emerge from the mists, a commotion occurred at the rear.

Ken bumped Sybil hard as he turned his horse.

“Ken, what are you doing?” Sybil sharply reprimanded him. “Where are you going?”

Tedi cupped her hands to her mouth.“Sister! Ken, turning back to the waterwheel.”

Sister whirled around in the saddle.“That son of a bitch!” She plunged back in the fog.

Mary Robertson, field master at Deep Run Hunt as well as MFH, calmly addressed the people riding up.“We’re going back to the trailers. Please follow me.”

Ken, hearing someone chasing him, clapped the spurs to his horse and flew south, toward the sunken meadows. He’d find Nola later.

Raleigh and Rooster, hearing Ken ride off, followed him.

“Mother! Mother, what’s going on?” Sybil cried.

Edward grabbed Sybil’s horse’s bridle. “Honey, we’ve got to go in. Your mother and I must talk to you.”

Tedi sandwiched her in by riding along her other side.“Just do as we say, honey. Please.”

Betty Franklin trotted in from the left and saw Sister charge into the mist, then come out behind her, heading south. She pulled up, then obeyed the call of the horn. Jennifer, coming in from the right, saw nothing but came to the horn.

The field, in shock, watched as first Ken flew out of the ground fog and then Sister.

Clytemnestra, oblivious, kept bucking along, throwing her massive head to the right and the left. Orestes imitated his mother.

Cindy Chandler sat there knowing there’d be more fence to repair, as well as wondering what the hell was going on.

Sister pushed Lafayette. The wonderful older thoroughbred had no bottom, he’d not wear out. He’d catch that horse in front of him. He’d show him who was the best of the best.

Ken, on a good horse, jumped out of the pasture, heading for the sunken acres. He knew the territory. Knew if he crossed Soldier Road, he could get into the brush at the bottom if Sister pushed too hard. If he could keep his lead he could ride straight to Roughneck Farm, get in her truck, and get away. Just where he’d go wasn’t in his mind at that moment.

A vision of twenty-one years ago was going through his mind. He wanted Nola.

Sister reached around and pulled out the .38 tucked in the small of her back. She fired a warning shot over her head.

Ken spurred on his horse.

Shaker, hearing the shot, knew it wasn’t ratshot. “Jesus,” he thought to himself. He told Betty and Jennifer to load up the hounds. He knew hounds would follow him, so he had to wait while they were hastily loaded. Then he was off.

Ken thought he could outride Sister, thought that because he was forty-eight and she was seventy-one he had the advantage. He should have known better. He’d ridden behind her for thirty years. She was tough as nails and always on fast horses.

He jumped into the sunken meadows and raced across, traces of rising mist all around him. He heard the two dogs behind him. Raleigh couldn’t have been more than twenty yards behind. Rooster was only a few paces behind the Doberman.

He crossed Soldier Road, got across the wildflower meadows just as Sister and Lafayette crossed Soldier Road.

Shaker and Hojo cleared the fence into the sunken meadows. He looked up ahead in the distance and saw Sister leveling her gun on Ken. She fired and missed.

“Christ,” he thought. “If she kills him she’ll go to jail even though he deserves it.” He laid his body low over Hojo, and the gelding knew just what to do. He put on the afterburners. They were over Soldier Road in no time.

Ken plunged into the wooded base of Hangman’s Ridge. There was enough cover that Sister couldn’t hit him. Raleigh and Rooster, however, were right behind him, giving tongue for all they were worth.

Ken cursed the fact that he didn’t have a gun. He’d shoot them and he’d shoot that goddamned old woman riding hard on his tail. The bitch. If she’d come to him quietly he would have paid her off generously. And killed her later, of course.

Sister and Lafayette pulled up at the base of Hangman’s Ridge for a moment, and she saw Shaker heading for her. She heard Raleigh and Rooster. She followed their voices. Like any good hunter she trusted her partners—in this case, one harrier, one Doberman, and one thoroughbred.

Warily she rode into the brush. She heard her dogs making a huge fuss and Ken cursing them. He was climbing. Well, it was faster than going around the ridge.

She pushed up the ridge. Shaker was now a third of a mile behind her.

While leading Melissa and Brandon home, Walter had heard Ken, then Sister, riding away. Now, hearing gunfire and a third set of hoofbeats, he urged the two actors to do their best and trot.

He nudged them toward Hangman’s Ridge.

Ken finally reached the top of the ridge, his horse blowing hard. He pushed on, heading to the hanging tree. The mists from below, rising, dissipating, wove in and out of the branches like silvery silk ribbons. He looked up. There sat Athena and Bitsy, an unnerving sight, especially since Athena held her wings fully outstretched, spooking his horse, who jumped sideways as Ken kicked him on.

Sister was over the ridge now, and Lafayette was gaining on Ken’s horse. Sister leveled her arm and fired. She hit Ken in the right shoulder. He didn’t make a sound but he bobbled in the saddle.

Lafayette drew even closer. She fired again, and this time hit him in the left shoulder. Blood seeped out of the back of his coat.

He had no grip left in his hands. Ken fell off the horse, his spurs digging up the earth as he hit hard.

His horse, grateful, stopped, sides heaving, covered in lather.

Athena kept her wings spread. She looked spectral.

Sister pulled up Lafayette to stand over Ken.“I have three bullets left. I will put one through your head.”

“I’ll tear his throat out.”Raleigh leapt on Ken.

“Off, Raleigh.”

The Doberman obeyed but sat by the bleeding man, ready to strike.

Shaker came up alongside. He dismounted, whipped off his belt, and tied Ken’s hands behind his back.

“Well done,” Shaker said. “Jesus, I thought you were going to kill him.”

“Day’s not over. I just might.” She stared down at Ken. “Why?”

He didn’t answer, so Shaker kicked him in the kidney. “Speak when a lady speaks to you.”

“I was going to lose everything.”

“But you already had lost everything.” Her face darkened.

He looked up at her through watery eyes.

“You lost your soul.” She slipped the gun back into her belt as Athena folded her wings.

Just then Walter, with an exhausted Melissa and Brandon, rode up by the wagon road.

Ken saw Melissa. His head fell to his chest as he sobbed.

CHAPTER 41

“The sordidness of it.” Alice Ramy stared at a tendril of poison ivy, flaming red, twining around a walnut tree.

Sister, Alice, and Tedi Bancroft sat on the bench in the hound graveyard. The three women had gravitated there as they walked together Sunday afternoon. They found themselves bound by time, by losses and loves, and finally by the profound shock of Ken Fawkes’s perfidy.

“You risked your life, Janie. I don’t know how to thank you. Edward and I can never truly thank you.”

“He didn’t have a gun. I was safe.” She grinned raffishly.

“He’d killed three people. He would have killed you if he could.” Alice noticed the long rays of the sun, the changing light from summer’s harshness to the soft, sweet light of winter.

“I don’t know if Sybil will ever thank me.”

“She will. Edward and I will get her through this. And the boys, she has to live for the boys now.”

“Poor girl …” Alice’s voice trailed off.

Alice put her arm around Tedi’s shoulders. “At least we know. That’s something.”

Tedi’s left hand fluttered to her face, the blue from Nola’s sapphire pulsating. “I loved her. She was like the light on my face, but”—she struggled against her emotions—“she was wrong. Nola’s capriciousness cost her life, Guy’s life, Ralph’s life, and her sister’s happiness. She didn’t deserve to die, but she was wrong, so very wrong.”

Sister quietly said,“Tedi, when you’re young and you have that kind of power, that power Nola had over men, maybe you just have to use it.”

“I feel so guilty.” Tedi choked up.

“Oh don’t, Tedi. Don’t.” Alice hugged her. “I don’t blame you. Those babies come out of the womb as who they are. We might help them or hurt them, but they’re formed. You didn’t make Nola the way she was. And maybe Sister’s right—when you have that kind of power, you use it.”

Tedi put her face in her hands.“If only I’d known!”

“Nobody knew except Ralph. And even he didn’t know all of it.” Sister leaned back on the bench. “I suppose we can be grateful that Ken confessed. We’d still be trying to put all the pieces together.”

“To think that he’d been having an affair with Nola for six months and none of us knew. I guess they were better actors than we realized.” Sister watched a small branch dip as a red-tailed hawk landed on it.

“What a fool.” Tedi spat out the words.

“Well, that was it, wasn’t it? She made fools of men? I don’t know why Nola did it. It’s one thing to exert your power, it’s another thing to hurt men.” Alice dropped her arm off Tedi’s shoulder and held her hand. “We’ll never really know what went on inside. I think at the end Guy knew. Maybe he sensed he’d never really have her. He was twentyfive. He was thinking about the future in a way he never had before. He wanted her to be part of it.”

“You warned him.” Tedi remembered Alice trying to steer Guy away from Nola.

“Children don’t listen.”

“Amen.” Tedi sighed, wiping away her tears with her free hand.

Ken’s confession stated that he had been sleeping with his sister-in-law. She’d grown bored, as Nola was wont to do with any man. She toyed with him while flaming around with Guy. But Ken wouldn’t give up. He said he’d tell Guy. Then he said he’d kill Guy. Nola finally threatened to tell her sister, to tell her parents, if he wouldn’t leave her alone.

Ken knew Sybil would divorce him. He loved being married to all that money. He couldn’t expect to receive a settlement since he was the one having the affair. The Bancrofts would cast him out without a penny. He’d also grown fond of his new social position.

But Nola, being Nola, couldn’t resist tantalizing him. She surreptitiously flirted with him during the first day of cubbing, even while she hung all over Guy. She brushed by Ken at Sorrell Buruss’s party, pressing against his body. And she made sure he saw her every move with Guy, running her hands through Guy’s black curly hair, kissing his cheek, leaning seductively against him at the bar.

Guy left the party early. He told Nola to meet him at the office. There was some paperwork he had to do, but then they could really party once he was done.

The party was wild. Ken lured Nola outside with the promise of great cocaine. They all did drugs back then, and Nola was never one to pass up a free toot.

He dangled his little vial in front of her, leading her ever farther away from the house. When he was sure no one could observe them, he tried to kiss her. She kissed him lightly, then wanted the coke. When she opened the vial to find only a few grains, she told him he was pathetic. She also told him Guy was a better lover. He lost it, grabbed her by the neck, and strangled the life right out of her. Just to make sure she was dead, he smashed her skull in with a rock, then dragged her body to the compost pile and covered her up. This took perhaps ten minutes.

He returned to the party, danced a few dances, then told his wife he would drive Ralph home in Ralph’s car since their good friend was blotto. He’d be home by seven so they could go to the C&O.

Ralph, tipsy, didn’t complain when Ken took him by the elbow and hustled him out. In the car, Ken spun a tale that Ralph was only too willing to believe: Guy had killed Nola because she was still in love with Ralph and that her affair with Guy was over. They drove to Guy’s office and called to him. When he came outside, Ken surprised him and hit him over the head, stuffed him in Ralph’s car, and drove toward After All, not five miles away. Ken pulled off the road and shot Guy before going to the house. They stuffed Guy into a big paint drum— the farm always had drums around because the fence painting never stopped. Ken dropped in the blacksmith’s anvil and soldered shut the lid.

Ken promised Ralph he’d make this all worth his while. He’d give him business for the rest of his life. He’d help him buy the tractor dealership as a silent partner. Besides, he insisted Nola was dead in part because of her feelings for Ralph. He was already implicated. In his slightly intoxicated state, it all made a strange sort of sense to Ralph.

Ken, Sybil, Ralph, and Frances met at the C&O. Later, back home when Sybil was asleep, he crawled out of bed, got a shovel, and dug a grave where the excavation work was finished for the covered bridge. Then he pushed his truck down the driveway, started it at the end so Sybil wouldn’t hear, and drove back near Sorrell’s. He parked off the road, walked back to the body, old canvas over his shoulder. He picked up Nola, who was cold and starting to go into rigor. She was twice as heavy. He drove back, dumped her in the grave, and filled it in. The final landscaping around the new bridge did the rest.

The next night, he prevailed upon Ralph again. They loaded the drum onto the truck in the middle of the night, drove to Norwood Bridge, and heaved Guy over the side, secure in the knowledge he would never surface.

Ralph, distressed over Nola’s death and people’s reaction to her disappearance, asked Ken to tell about her demise, but Ken said he’d go to jail for killing Guy. This way, cruel though it was that Tedi, Edward, and Sybil didn’t know the truth of Nola’s disappearance, at least Ken would be safe and Sybil would have a husband. Surely Ralph understood why Ken had to kill Guy. Nor would he tell Ralph where Guy had buried Nola’s body. Ralph wanted to know, bursting into tears at the thought. Ken told him to get a grip, to get over it.

Ralph, if he figured out the truth, kept it to himself. He had a lot to lose. Ken was as good as his word about giving Ralph money for the business.

And so they prospered for twenty-one years until Nola returned. Ralph, consumed with guilt long kept at bay, called Sister. Ralph took his first step toward redemption, but he didn’t have the opportunity to take any more.

Ken knew Ralph had tipped off somebody about the location of Guy’s body. It was a matter of time until he killed him. The thick fog gave him an opportunity to strike before Ralph cracked, told the story.

He whispered to Ralph. No one could see him. He didn’t expect Ralph to bolt. Ken had planned a more conventional end for Ralph, poison, but when Ralph ran off in the fog, Ken, who had been on the other side of the fence line, jumped the coop. He had no trouble hearing the terrified man crash through the cornfield. He tracked him up to Hangman’s Ridge, shot him, hurried down the steep back way, risked all by galloping in the fog, slowing only as he neared the stables at After All. He put up his horse and reached the house shortly after the other returned riders.

Not only was he not upset by this murder, he was exhilarated by it.

Ken made his confession in great physical pain but with a clear mind and no appreciable awakening of conscience.

The only glimmer that there was something salvage-able inside was when he told Ben Sidell he regretted the pain he would be causing his wife and children. Sybil had been a good wife and a good mother. He opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing came out.

As for Nola, when he spoke of her, all his suppressed rage, lust, and love boiled over with each word. Nor had twenty-one years dimmed his blind jealousy of Guy Ramy. Ken still believed they both got what they deserved.

As the three women sat there discussing what had transpired, it occurred to Sister that Tedi had seen more of the world than either she or Alice ever would. However, when you reached a certain age, even if you never left the county into which you were born, you’d usually seen most of what the human animal can do for good or evil. And you also realized that most humans were so busy defending themselves and their version of reality that they missed the nose on their own faces. They hadn’t the energy to change or grow, diverting it into a lonely self-centeredness. Truly intelligent people learned from others and from history.

“It’s so peaceful here,” Alice said.

“Yes, I come here often. Sometimes Inky, the black fox, visits here. She sits and looks at me. I sit and look at her.”

“Foxes,” Tedi mused, then touched Sister’s hand. “What went through your mind when you were chasing Ken?”

“I don’t know exactly.” She studied the hound sculpture. “Well, maybe in a way I do.” Sister stopped, then smiled at Raleigh, Rooster, and Golly snoozing in the shade of the statue.

“Janie?” Tedi raised her eyebrows. “What were you thinking?”

“Just that I needed to catch him. But then once he was down I thought of Hotspur. You might remember his lines: ‘And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, / By telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil.’ ”

“Shakespeare and I aren’t well acquainted.” Alice smiled.

“Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene I,” said Tedi, who recognized Sister’s source. “I have to show off my expensive education from time to time.”

“Well, it’s over and we have to get on with our lives. I’d give anything to have Guy back, but what I do have is memories, and maybe a new way of looking at things. I intend to honor my son, not mourn him.”

“Well said.” Tedi felt the same way about her daughter.

“You know what I think? I’ve probably known it in the back of my mind, but not so I could say it.” Sister gazed in wonder at tiny dancing particles suspended in a ray of light. “To wantonly destroy life is a sin, a stain, an affront to every one of us. I believe, with my heart and soul, that all life is sacred. That, it seems to me, is a truth that would shame any devil.”