About a quarter of a mile on the north side of Hangman’s Ridge, running parallel to it, was Soldier Road, so named because during the Revolutionary War, the recruits hurried down the road to gather at the town square.
Along that road, at sunset, Fontaine Buruss was driving his sleek Jaguar back into town. He’d conveniently forgotten that he’d promised to repair the coop he’d banged up during the morning’s hunt. His mind was focused on meeting a lady for mutual pleasure. If he timed it exactly right, he’d be home in time for dinner.
A cloaked figure, scythe on his shoulder, beckoned to him as he drove along the ridge. With his right hand he waved Fontaine toward him.
Fontaine slowed, then sped up.
When he reached his affairette of the month, the beautiful and much younger Cody Jean Franklin, the first thing he said to her was, “That goddamned Crawford Howard tried to scare me today. First he ran me into a coop on Sister Jane’s land”—he paused, remembering he’d not fixed it—“and then the silly ass, dressed as the angel of death, waved me to him from Hangman’s Ridge.”
“How do you know it was Crawford Howard?”
“Who else would do that? He hates me. What did he think he’d do? Scare me to death?”
“Did you see his face?” Cody sensibly asked.
“No, the hood was over the face but it was Crawford all right. I’d bet my life on it.” He started to fume and was ready to say he’d get even with that Yankee son of a bitch but then he noticed the time, considered his purpose in being there. “I brought you a present.” He reached into his tweed coat pocket, retrieving two small packages.
She opened the larger package. A Navy SEAL watch with a rubber wristband and a yellow face was inside. “Thank you, Fontaine. I can sure use this.” The other package, a tiny glass vial of cocaine, she put on the coffee table.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. She kissed him back. He knew he’d make dinner right on time.
Carrying a bobwhite in his mouth, Butch, the patriarch of the gray fox clan, crawled into his burrow, dropping the freshly killed ground bird.
He, too, had been by Hangman’s Ridge, right along the fence line but in the woods. He’d watched Sister Jane and Shaker. He thought Archie was on the other side of the ridge. He’d observed the usually reliable hound get fixated at the red fox den that morning. In fact, he’d had an enjoyable morning watching the Jefferson Hunt get turned around backward while chasing three different red foxes. Better the reds than himself. He had hunting to do and he’d been out too late that night anyway. He should have been in his den by the time he heard the huntsman’s horn. Still, the sight of all those humans bouncing around, falling off puce-faced, was too good to pass up. He sat on a moss-covered boulder by the creek and watched. He saw Fontaine, headed off by Crawford Howard, crash into the jump. Fontaine shook his fist at Crawford, who rode off as though nothing had happened. Then he had the delightful prospect of watching Fontaine, who had no sense of direction, ride around in circles in the forest. He only found the others because the hunt doubled back.
His mate and two half-grown children tore into the bobwhite. He’d eaten so much corn while hunting that he couldn’t stomach another bite.
Inky, his black daughter, a wing under her paw, smiled. She was a most unusual creature and not just because of her color. She was smarter than the rest of the family and there were times when that intelligence was unsettling.
“The reds were out in full force today. I suppose they felt it their duty to humiliate the Jefferson Hunt,” Butch said, laughing.
“They usually do,” his mate, Mary Vey, replied.
“Three hit the ground today. Not a bad day at all. And I saw Death on the way home.”
“Someone killed hunting?” Comet, his strong son, asked.
“No, it’s been years since that’s happened. On Hangman’s Ridge, the Reaper stood in the sunset, right by the hanging tree where I suppose he’s claimed plenty of men in the past. He wasn’t looking my way, so I think I’m safe.”
“Anyone else see him?” Comet wondered.
“Sister Jane did. I saw her look straight at him and I expect that tenacious hound, sounded like Archie, on the other side of the ridge saw him, too. Don’t know who else if anyone.”
“I wonder if she really saw him?” Mary Vey, hearing a rustle at the main entrance, sniffed. The badger from over in the hollow was passing by.
“Oh, she saw him. The question is, did it register? Humans discount anything that doesn’t fit into their version of reality,” he said. “But Sister, well, I expect Sister really saw him and knows she saw him.”
“I wonder if her time has come.”
That night as Sister Jane drew the down comforter around her—her cat, Golliwog, on her left side; her Doberman, Raleigh, on her right—she wondered the same thing.
CHAPTER 2
“Crashed it all to hell. Slid off his horse, then stood there sputtering, shaking his fist at me. What an inspiring sight.” Crawford Howard sucked on his briarwood Dunhill pipe as he gleefully recounted his run-in, literally, with Fontaine Buruss.
“So that’s why he was so behind.” Bobby Franklin, who looked like a defrocked friar, picked up an ice-cold shrimp, dipping it in sauce. Bobby was president of Jefferson Hunt, which put him in charge of organizing events, of politicking. Jane Arnold, as master, was in charge of everything connected to hunting. The master also made up any financial shortfalls.
“He’s been campaigning nonstop behind my back and I damned well won’t have it.” Crawford calmly ate a shrimp himself.
“Craw, this is political. Of course he’s campaigning behind your back and you might wish to start pressing the flesh yourself, and I don’t mean just handing out money. You need to talk to people. Make them feel important and most especially important to you.”
Crawford stopped chewing. He’d put on twenty pounds since youth, but he was in good shape. Medium height, blue eyes, and a pleasant voice, he was not an unattractive man. He wisely treated his receding hairline as a fact of nature and cut his hair very short, which always makes a man look better in such circumstances. He sported a carefully trimmed short beard and mustache. And he was rich, disgustingly rich.
“I’ve shoveled money into the Jefferson Hunt Club for years. I should think that would signify the importance I attach to the club.” He reached for his iced tea. His gold ring bearing the family crest reflected the dim light.
“You’ve been a contributor any master would pray for.” Bobby paused, thinking about the sacrifices Sister Jane had made to keep the club going when her husband died unexpectedly ten years ago. “But people . . . you need to make people feel important. Fontaine is awfully good at that.”
“Useless blowhard. They can’t keep him in mattresses or mistresses.”
“And he’s Virginia born and bred.”
“Not that again.” Crawford put his glass down.
Bobby, also from the soil of the great, grand, and even haughty state of Virginia, declined to explain further. Crawford was in no mood to consider that the place of his birth was a drawback to his cherished goal, to become joint-master of the local hunt, a goal that in England often led to the House of Commons, if a man was clever. In America the initials M.F.H. behind a man’s name or a woman’s defined a form of power almost feudal in its scope even to those who didn’t ride to hounds. Not to know that M.F.H. meant “Master of Foxhounds” signified that a person was beyond the pale, especially in Virginia and Maryland, still intense rivals over anything to do with horses, hounds, or foxes.