“And a joy forever.” Ken laughed partly because Ronnie had turned so serious.
“He’s right, though,” Bobby said. “And I don’t want to go into debt. Crawford, I am underlining that thought three times. But I agree with Ron. If we do it, we do it right.”
“Well, would any of you care to serve on my exploratory committee?” Crawford threw down the gauntlet.
“I will,” Ralph said. “To keep an eye on you!”
Everyone laughed.
“Me too,” Ken agreed.
Betty nudged Bobby. He ignored her as she spoke up herself. “I’d be happy to do some research on this. It’s exciting.”
Sister said, “Might I suggest you ask Walter. He’d be invaluable in dealing with details like handicap access, sanitary facilities. And he’s got a wealth of common sense, too.”
“Good idea,” Betty said. She liked Walter.
“All right, if there’s no further discussion, will someone make a motion that we adjourn?”
“Wait. One more piece of hunting news,” Sister said, and rolled her eyes heavenward as if announcing a miracle from Heaven. “Alice Ramy will let us hunt through her land.” Just then an enormous thunderclap startled all of them. “Perfect timing.” Sister laughed. The power wavered, then went out.
“I’ve got candles. Don’t worry.” Frances bustled in from the kitchen as Ralph lit the graceful hurricane lamps on the mantelpiece.
“How did you do it?” Betty was agape.
“You know, I didn’t do a thing. If we give credit to anyone, let’s give it to our former member, Guy Ramy. His memory changed his mother’s mind.”
A silence followed this.
Ken finally said, “Well, that’s wonderful. I think each of us board members should make the effort to call on Alice and personally thank her.”
“Hear. Hear!” Bobby lightly rapped the table with his gavel. “Excellent development. Excellent idea.”
A flash of lightning, another thunderclap, and a torrent of rain dropped out of the sky.
“I don’t ever remember this many thunderstorms. This year’s been peculiar,” Ralph said. He struck a safety match, lighting more candles.
Everyone talked about the weather, Alice, and local events while Betty and Sister helped Frances bring out the food. Ralph opened the bar.
After everyone had a drink in hand, Ralph pulled out a flask holder from behind the bar. “Would you look at what my lovely wife bought me?”
Bobby Franklin reached for it; the British tan leather was cool to his touch. He put his thumb under the small metal button knob, popping up the leather flap that secured the top. Carefully he lifted out the silver-topped flask. Holding the glass to the candlelight, he whistled and said, “Handblown.”
“Let me see that.” Ken took the flask. “Even got your initial on it.”
“Frances thinks of everything,” Ralph boasted.
“Wonderful woman,” Ronnie agreed. “Only ever made one mistake.”
“What’s that?” Ralph’s eyebrows knitted together.
“Married you,” Ronnie said, and laughed.
As they ate, talked, joked with one another, Betty said to Sister, “Bet we don’t hunt tomorrow.”
“It will clear up.”
“You always say that.” Betty dabbed her mouth with a linen napkin. “That Frances makes the best deviled eggs. Guards the recipe with her life.”
“Hounds are going out unless it’s a monsoon.”
And that’s what it was. So hounds stayed in the kennels and Sister finally knocked off her overdue grocery shopping. She knew, given the moisture, that Saturday’s hunt would be slick but that scent ought to hold. She couldn’t wait.
CHAPTER 27
Aztec’s ears swept forward and back. Although possessed of 360-degree vision, give or take a degree, Aztec couldn’t see more than three feet in front of his well-shaped nostrils thanks to persistent fog. Relying on his hearing, he could tell hounds, on a light line in front of him, were working hard to stay with scent. He knew scent should have been glorious, but it wasn’t. Foxhunting is a humbling sport, and Nature makes a volatile partner.
Sister listened for hounds, Shaker’s voice, the horn, and for the horses behind her. She couldn’t move out too quickly because the field, twenty-four strong this early morning, would be scattered like ninepins in the blanket of fog. Mostly they walked and trotted. If hounds hit a hot line, she’d need to use her knowledge of the territory to try to keep up without losing people or running into a barn.
The fog hung over them, refusing to lift. Foxes, knowing the night would bring a full moon, stayed in their dens resting up for what they hoped would be a party night. Lunacy didn’t just apply to people.
Fortunately for the hunters, the trails of scent from the night before still lingered. Those late coming home, around sunup, left even fresher scent, but as yet the pack hadn’t hit it.
Betty Franklin, on the left side, crept along Snake Creek’s bank. The ground was soggy, but she knew where she was. If hounds really moved off she thought she could stay with them until they entered either the hayfield about four hundred yards to her right, or ran straight through the woods and came out into the cornfield bottom. Once in an open field, Betty knew she’d become disoriented. All she could do was ride to cry, but ultimately that’s all any whipper-in can do under harsh conditions.
Sybil, feeling jittery, hoped she wouldn’t get in the hounds’ way. Hounds met at her parents’ big house at After All. Under normal circumstances, Shaker and Sister together with Betty and Sybil would have met at the kennels and roaded them over. This would give hounds time to settle, horses and humans time to limber up, but the fog prevented that. Instead, they loaded everyone on the hound trailer and drove to After All, parking down at the barns.
Even though Sybil was born and raised on this land, the fog transformed the most ordinary things into the extraordinary.
She jumped, startled, as the covered bridge appeared before her like the gaping mouth of the mask of tragedy. Her fear made Marquise, her horse, leap sideways.
“Sorry, Sweetie.”
They clip-clopped over the bridge. She thought Betty was up ahead. In a situation like this, Betty would go forward on the left side and Sybil would come behind on the right side. Sybil could hear hounds ahead of her moving along the creek bed. She had no idea where the field was but reminded herself that Sister knew the land even better than she did. Sister had had twenty-five more years to study it.
She climbed the low ridge, sending small stones rolling down the slick mud behind her. She pulled up by her sister’s and Peppermint’s graves.
“Nola, you’d enjoy today.”
Never having spoken to a grave or a dead person before, she felt slightly foolish, but there persisted deep within her the idea that Nola was near. Not just her remains, but her spirit. And that spirit loved her. Yes, when small they fought like banty roosters. As they became teenagers, Sybil swallowed her resentment of her sister’s beauty, her extroverted personality. Alone upstairs at night, one or the other would slide down the polished hall floor, socks barely making a squeak. Then they’d sit together on the bed, compare their days, make fun of everyone else, study the models in Seventeen or Vogue magazine, and talk endlessly about horses.
When Ken Fawkes courted Sybil, Nola fought with Tedi and Edward right alongside her. She even told her father he was a snob. Ken might be poor, but he wasn’t stupid and he made Sybil happy. She loved Nola for that. Somehow she hadn’t even minded that at her wedding the maid of honor unintentionally outshone the bride.
A ripple of anguish washed over her as she wondered, yet again, what Nola’s last moments were like. Was she terrified? Perhaps. Defiant? Most likely. Did she know she was about to die? Sybil prayed that she did not. Perhaps her murderer was merciful in that he didn’t torture her. Maybe he killed swiftly and Nola never knew what was happening.