Hotspur (29 page)

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 twenty-five. 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.”