Ken’s voice again reached them. “I’ll go first. Why don’t we fall in line and try to keep the horse in front of you in view.”
Ron moved toward the fence, or what he thought was the fence.“I don’t hear anyone up ahead.”
“Must all be over.” Xavier picked up his reins.
“Or unconscious from missing that jump.” Ron laughed.
“We’d have heard the screams,” Ken called out, his voice moving farther and farther away.
“Sybil, where are you?” Ron asked.
“I’m the rear guard.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Ralph raised his voice so she could hear, but the fog carried sounds strangely; little sounds were magnified.
“I’m here,” she called back reassuringly.
They walked along, silent for a few moments. The squish, squish of their horses’ hooves accentuated the increasingly dismal day.
A soft whisper in his ear made Ralph sit up straight in his saddle. It sounded like“I’m going to kill you.”
“What’d you say?” Xavier, too, heard the whisper.
“Nothing,” Sybil replied, soaked and cold.
Ralph, the fence line to his right, now heard,“I know it was you.” He couldn’t quite recognize the voice. A knife edge of fear ripped at his stomach.
Ron turned in his saddle.“Where the hell is the gate?”
Xavier grumbled,“I don’t know.”
Ken called,“Keep up.”
“We’re behind you,” Ron called back. “Just moving slower.”
“Gate, please.” Ken uttered the traditional foxhunting command that directed the last person to close the gate.
Ralph thought he was between Ron and Xavier, but he could no longer see them.
Ron reached the opened gate, passing through.“Sybil, gate please,” he bellowed.
“Okay,” she responded, her voice fading away.
The voice whispered in Ralph’s ear again. “Time to join Hotspur.”
Ralph pressed with his right leg, and his horse swerved left. He didn’t pass through the gate, but instead he tore off through the cornfield.
Ron heard him take off.“What the shit is going on?”
Xavier clucked to his horse and caught up to Ron.“What’s going on?”
“That’s just what I said.” Ron frowned. “Ralph!” No response. “Sybil.”
“Here I am.” She appeared out of the silver.
“What’s going on?” Ron again asked.
“I don’t know.” Sybil shrugged.
“Well, Ralph’s not here.” Ron yelled, “Ken!”
“Yo,” Ken called back, from an indeterminate distance.
Xavier leaned forward.“Look, we’re going to get lost out here. Let’s trot. The sooner we get back the better.”
“Yeah, but where’s Ralph?” Ron, truly worried now, pointed his crop at Xavier.
“I don’t know.” Xavier knocked his crop away with his own crop. “What are you so worried about? For all we know, he’s ahead of us. Maybe he’s ahead of Ken.”
“We can’t leave him.”
“You two go back. I know this country. I’ll look for him,” Sybil calmly replied.
“Sybil, we can’t leave a lady out here. I’m telling you, there’s a storm coming up,” Ron said sternly.
“Don’t think of me as a lady. Think of me as a whipper-in and there’s a lost hound. I’d be out then. Just tell Ken when you see him that I’ll be late getting in and not to worry. If the weather turns nasty I’ll put my horse up at Sister’s.” She disappeared into the fog.
“Sybil! Sybil!” Ron shouted.
Then they both heard a light rap on the coop.
“She’s going the wrong way,” Xavier exhaled, thoroughly tired of the whole thing. “Come on, Ron.”
“Something is really wrong. I don’t think we should leave them.”
“Leave Ralph? We don’t know where he is, and Sybil’s right, she does know the territory even if she is heading in the wrong direction,” Xavier said.
Ron’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know it was Sybil who just took that jump?”
“Look, old buddy, I’ll grant you that things have been really crazy. But maybe Ralph got sick of crawling through the mist. Maybe he spurred on and he’s halfway back to the trailers by now.”
“He turned in the opposite direction. I heard him hit the corn.”
“What do you mean?”
Ron shook his helmet as a raindrop hit the velvet top.“I heard the stalks, the leaves, you know, the long leaves. I heard them hitting him.”
Xavier sat silent, then spoke.“Hear anything else?”
“Just that rub on the fence when Sybil jumped in. She should have headed back toward Sister’s.”
“We have to go in. We do. We can’t do anything to help. It’s going to rain. It’s already raining.” Xavier peered up into the deepening gray as the drizzle slicked his face. “If they aren’t there, then we can worry. Come on.”
With reluctance, Ron passed through the gate, waited for Xavier to walk through, then he leaned over from atop his kind, patient horse and closed the gate, dropping the metal kiwi latch, shaped like a comma, through the steel circle.
Ralph galloped through the corn. His face wet, broad flat corn leaves were hitting him. He thought he heard hoofbeats behind him. He reached the farm road as the first raindrop splattered. If he had been in better command of himself he would have prudently turned left, jumped into the orchard, and ridden to Sister’s barn, perhaps a fifteen-minute trot. But panic had overtaken him, and he turned his horse right, pushing toward Hangman’s Ridge.
Inky heard him pass as she snuggled in her den. Five minutes later she heard a second set of hoofbeats, only this horse wasn’t running. This horse moved at a deliberate trot. As the weather was filthy, her curiosity was dimmed. She wasn’t going out to see what was going on.
Ralph, breathing heavily, eyes wide, transmitted his terror to his horse as he urged the animal up to the right. They reached the flat plateau of Hangman’s Ridge.
“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.