Hotspur (21 page)

“Oh shit.” Ralph shook his head. He hadn't wanted to come up here, but his mind was fuzzy. Hands shaking, he reached down for his flask, flipped open the leather case, now slippery, and pulled out the heavy, handblown flask. He unscrewed the top and emptied the entire contents. The fire wiggled down his throat, into his belly. He took a deep breath.

Clutching the flask, he moved toward the giant oak, ignoring the warning snorts of his horse, a far better judge of danger than Ralph.

“Trooper, get a grip,” commanded Ralph, whose spirits were now stronger thanks to those he had imbibed.

The enormous glistening tree loomed out of the fog. A shrieking sound so unnerved Trooper that he shied, all four feet off the ground. Ralph hit with a thud, his flask rolling across the wet grass.

Trooper turned and fled back toward the farm road. The horse smelled another horse moving up through the narrow deer paths on the side of the ridge. He didn't bother to whinny. He lowered his head and ran as if his life depended on it, the stirrup irons banging at his sides.

Ralph, cursing, picked himself up. Only then did he see, or think he saw, the hanging corpse of Lawrence Pollard, the fine lace of his sleeves drooping in the wet.

“And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Lawrence quoted Philippians, chapter two, verse eight. Then he moaned, “Obedient unto death, even death on a hanging tree.” The wind that always blew on the ridge carried his voice away.

Ralph, sweat running down his face, his hands wet with sweat, backed away from the tree. He turned to follow his horse in flight. Running, slipping, sliding, falling, picking himself up—only to run smack into another horror.

“Oh God,” Ralph sobbed.

“You'll see Him before I do.”

Down in the kennels, Sister and Shaker were removing collars from hounds who had hunted. The boys were then released to go to their side of the kennel, the girls to the other side. This allowed the master and huntsman to inspect each hound, making sure no one's pads had been cut, no ears sliced by deadly Virginia thorns.

A crack brought hound and human heads up.

“What was that?”

“No one's sighting a rifle today,” Shaker said, hands fallen to his sides. He looked toward the north.

“Sound plays tricks in this weather. Could have been a backfire on Soldier Road,” Sister said halfheartedly.

“Small caliber,”
Asa told them.

“Handgun,”
Diana added, her ears lifted, her nose in the air. Although there was nothing to smell inside the draw pen, she still trusted her nose above all other senses.

“All right, boys.” Shaker led the boys to their door.

“Come on, girls.” Sister did the same for the gyps.

Once the hounds were in their proper kennels, both humans, without speaking to each other, walked out the front door of the main kennel to listen.

Far away they heard hoofbeats, trotting. As the sound came closer, they walked through the intensifying rain to the stable.

The girls inside had finished cleaning the tack.

“Can't see a bloody thing.” Shaker felt uneasy.

“We came in in the nick of time.” As Sister reached for a towel hanging on a tack hook, Sybil materialized out of the fog, leading Trooper.

“Sybil?”

“Sister, I found him wandering through the orchard. Guess he jumped the fence by himself.”

A shaking Trooper stared wild-eyed at the people. The other horses, munching hay in their stalls, stopped.

“Girls, gently, gently, put him in the end stall, take his tack off, and wipe him down.”

As Trooper passed the others, he rolled his eyes.
“I
saw the ghost. Ralph wouldn't listen,”
he kept babbling.

Keepsake, hoping to calm him, said,
“There are a couple up there.”

Sybil dismounted as Jennifer took her reins. “Somehow Ralph became separated from the group, so I went out to look for him. Can't find anything in this.”

Sister, worried, said, “He could be walking back here or to your farm. No telling.”

“Or he could be hurt.” Shaker said what she was thinking.

“Girls, take care of Sybil's horse, too, please.”

“Yes, ma'am. Then can we help you look?” Sari asked.

She waited a moment, her mind racing. “Yes. Take care of Trooper and Marquise first.” Then, voice lower, as if speaking to herself, she murmured, “Trooper is a sensible horse.”

Shaker, his shirt soggy against his skin, touched Sybil's elbow. “When did you last see Ralph?”

“At the gate between the cornfield and our line. The hand gate. Of course, couldn't see anything, but that's where I heard him last. Ken, Xavier, Ron, Ralph, and I decided to go through the gate to get back home. You couldn't even see the coop anymore until you were right up on it. No sense getting hurt. But we got strung out.”

“The first thing to do is call your mother. It could be that everyone is back safe and sound.”

Sister hurried into the tack room, knowing in her bones that all was most emphatically not safe and sound.

CHAPTER 28

“And why weren't you out hunting today?” Tedi, steaming cup of hot chocolate in hand, asked Cindy Chandler, the owner of Foxglove Farm.

The pretty blonde smiled. “I was going to go.”

“Sure, Weenie,” Betty Franklin, nursing roped coffee, teased. She'd roaded hounds back to the kennel and left her horse there. As a whipper-in, her concern was the hounds. And Sister never minded Betty putting her horse up in Sister's barn. She'd driven Jennifer's car to After All since Sister asked her to go on ahead and be her stand-in while she and Shaker removed collars.

“I really was. Cat Dancing and I are ready,” she mentioned her beloved mare, “but Clytemnestra and her calf, Orestes, broke down the back side of the fencing and escaped. Still haven't found them.”

“Cindy, can't you call that damned cow Bessie? Does it have to be Clytemnestra?” Betty checked her watch. “God, it's terrible to have to work for a living. I'd better roll on.”

Tedi scanned her living room. “Sybil's still not back.”

Betty frowned a moment. “Maybe she's at the barn.”

Members had carried cakes, biscuits, and sandwiches they'd packed for a small tailgate into Tedi's dining room. As with most spontaneous gatherings, it proved much more fun than the arduously planned variety.

Edward had shepherded the field back to his barns. Not often acting as field master, he had neglected to make a head count.

“Have any idea where the cow headed? Tracks?” Betty returned to the case of the missing cow and calf.

“I tracked her across Soldier Road but lost her trail in the wildflower meadows. This fog is unbelievable. Don't know how you all were out there without getting lost.”

“Well, that's another story.” Betty laughed.

“We were never lost. No, not the trusty Jefferson Hunt Club.” Ken sipped his coffee, a shot of Irish Mist adding immeasurably to his pleasure since he was wet and chilled.

“Rain dropped buckets on me, like the heavens had unzipped, so I went back home, took a hot shower, and then came over to ask Tedi and Edward to keep an eye out for Cly and Orestes. I'd better alert Sister, too,” Cindy thought out loud.

“Once this fog lifts, we'll find her. She's hard to miss,” Tedi said.

Clytemnestra, the black and white Holstein cow, was quite flashy. Her pastures, rich in redbud clover and alfalfa, should give the cow no reason for complaint, but Cly liked the excitement of escape. Also, she was nosy and wanted to see what was happening on other farms. She was teaching her offspring her tricks. Although still a little fellow, he eagerly absorbed his mother's lessons. Their jailbreak over the summer when Sister, Walter, Shaker, and Doug built the new in and out jumps only inflamed them to further adventures.

People slowly began to head home. They checked on their horses in their trailers, then drove away.

“Hey,” Betty said, poking her head back inside the living room. She had left, gone to Jennifer's car, then returned. “Ralph Assumptio's trailer is down at the barn, but he wasn't at the breakfast.”

“Edward,” Tedi called, and her husband came in from the library.

“What, dear?”

“Did you see Ralph at breakfast?”

“No, don't think so.”

“Ken?” Tedi asked her son-in-law, who wanted to change clothes and head for the office.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Good God, he must still be out there.” Tedi blanched.

“Bobby brought up the rear,” Betty said. “We might reach him in the truck.” She walked into the kitchen to use the phone. Tedi followed. “Oh, Bobby, glad I got you. I'm still at the Bancrofts'. We can't find Ralph.”

“What?”

“His trailer is here but he's not, and no one remembers seeing him at breakfast.” Betty's eyes met Tedi's.

“The last time I saw Ralph was at the coop between the cornfields and the woods. A couple of guys were back there,” Bobby recalled.

“Let me talk to him.” Ken took the phone from Betty. “Hey, Bobby. Ronnie, Xavier, Ralph, and I had a drink while everyone was negotiating the coop. Sybil was back there with us, too. That's the last time I saw him. You're sure he didn't come in and go home with someone else? Maybe put his horse on their trailer?”

“No.” Bobby felt terrible. His job was to bring up the rear.

Edward felt responsible, too.

“Ralph wouldn't leave his trailer here without asking,” Tedi said, truly worried now.

As Ken talked to Bobby, the other line rang. Ken put Bobby on hold and heard Sister's voice.

“Is Ralph there?” she inquired.

“No. We just noticed. I'm on the other line with Bobby.”

“We need to look for him. I'm sending Sybil to where Snake Creek feeds into Broad. She'll follow the creek back to your covered bridge. Ralph's smart enough to use the creek. Put Betty on.”

“Let me say good-bye to Bobby.”

“Tell him to stay at work. We have enough people to find Ralph. Okay?”

Ken relayed her message to Bobby, pressed the flashing button, and handed the phone to Betty.

“Boss?” Betty's voice rose.

“Take Edward. Go to the Bleeding Rock. Retrace our steps that way. You'll come out at the coop. Maybe he came a cropper at the coop.”

“Okay.”

“Ask Ken and Tedi to drive along Soldier Road. He might be walking on the road.”

“Where are you going?”

“Cornfield and all around the base of Hangman's Ridge. If we don't find him in an hour I'm calling Ben Sidell. In fact, tell the others to take their cell phones. If no one finds Ralph, call me on my cell in one hour.”

“Roger.”

“Oh. Jennifer and Sari want to help. Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Good. I'll put them in the orchard and tell them to follow hound tracks backward to the cornfield in case Ralph tracked hounds.” She hoped the tracks hadn't completely washed away.

“Okay.”

“One hour.”

“Right.” Betty hung up and gave the others Sister's orders.

They threw on Barbour coats or Gore-Tex jackets and hurried out of the house.

Sister scribbled her cell phone number on a pad and handed it to Jennifer. “Call us. We'll be in the cornfields and then around the bottom of Hangman's Ridge. If you don't find anything when you finally reach the cornfield, come straight back to the barn. Don't leave the barn until you hear from me.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Jennifer said.

With that, Sister and Shaker hopped into the truck. They parked and combed the cornfields, rain pouring down, fog as dense as ever, but found nothing unusual.

Then they climbed back into the truck, mud caked on their boots, every new step seemingly heavier than the last, and they checked the base of the ridge. The rain had washed away any tracks.

“We might as well go to the top of the ridge. At least we can drive up,” Sister said, water running off her coat and onto the floor.

“Why would he go up there? Even in the fog he'd know Hangman's Ridge. He'd have to have climbed up,” Shaker sensibly said.

“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 ruthless
and now reckless.”

“What about Sister? Is she safe?”

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

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

“A lot of things happen during a hunt. Maybe we will
get 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 a
chance. This human is moving.”
Athena blinked.
“He
really has broken cover.”

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

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