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.