“Heart attack?”
“War. Or misjudging a fence. That sort of thing.”
“I’m glad you stuck around as long as you have.” She reached for his hand, cool and elegant. “We’ve had a good, long run. We took our fences in style. Maybe we crashed a few, but we were always game, Raymond. You most of all.”
He leaned back on the plumped-up pillow.“Foxhunting is the closest we’ll come to a cavalry charge.”
“Without the bullets and cannonballs.”
“Wouldn’t have minded that as much as this. It’s not fitting for a man to die like this, you know.” He sat up again. “What I’ve always longed for is a release from safety. We’re ruined by uniformity and tameness.” His eyes blazed.
“I know,” she simply said.
He tried to take a breath but couldn’t. “You’ve done a good job breeding the hounds. I forget to tell you the good things you do.”
“I inherited a good pack.”
“We’ve both seen good packs go to ruin in the hands of an idiot, of which there are many. Christ, put MFH behind a man’s name and he thinks he’s God.”
“The fox has a way of humbling us all. Raymond, for what it’s worth, I have been an imperfect wife, but I love you. I have always loved you.”
He smiled.“It all does come down to love, doesn’t it? And even if you’ve only loved for one day, then you’ve lived. Well, I love you. And as we both know, my feet are made of clay. But my love for you has always been true. Like the hunt, it takes me beyond safety, beyond tameness. ” He smiled more broadly. “Apart from this ignominious end, I am a most lucky fellow.”
“Sounds like a Broadway play.” She squeezed his hand.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.“Oh, for a straight-necked fox and a curvaceous woman.” He kissed her hand again. “Has to be hunting in heaven. I’ll look up Tom Firr, Thomas Assheton Smith, the other Thomas Smith, Ikey Bell, oh, the list could go on.” He cited famous masters and huntsmen from the past. “And I shall look for Ray, mounted on a small thoroughbred, and we’ll ride together.” He stopped talking because he couldn’t fight back the tears.
Nor could Sister. And as she snapped out of her reverie she discovered her cheeks were wet but her heart was oddly full. As Raymond had said, it’s all about love. And love remembered washed over her with a power beyond reason.
Poor Ralph had no such comfort at his death. As Father Banks continued the service, a still, white-hot anger began to fill Sister.
Did he beg for his life? Knowing Ralph, she thought he probably did not, even if he were terrified.
Did Nola? Or Guy? Sister prayed and prayed mightily for them all.
Three people snatched from life, not one of them feeling a tender hand on their brow, a kind voice offering all the love there was to offer.
Nola, Guy, and Ralph had not walked on water. Each could be foolish and, as Nola and Guy were so young when they died, they had never had the chance to learn wisdom. They never outgrew the behavior that must have infuriated their killer. It’s possible both Nola and Guy would have remained wild, but unlikely. The duties and pains of this life fundamentally change all but the most dedicated to immaturity. And those duties are actually wonderful. It’s duty that makes you who you are. Duty and honor.
Sister never thought of this as bending to the yoke; for her, it was rising to the occasion. Nola and Guy never had the time to recognize their duties, much less fulfill them. At least Ralph did. He made something of himself, proved a good husband and father.
The stupidity of these deaths, the casual evil of them, overwhelmed her.
She sat there, boiling, knowing the killer had to be in the church.
“Whoever he or she is, they’re a consummate actor,” she thought to herself.
As the service ended, the pallbearers, Ken, Ronnie, Xavier, Bobby, Roger, and Kevin McKenna, Ralph’s college roommate, took their places around the polished mahogany casket. In one practiced motion they lifted Ralph on their shoulders and, in step, arms swinging in unison, carried him down the center aisle, then out into the glowing late-September light.
The congregation followed the family at a respectful distance and filed into the cemetery, home to three centuries of the departed.
The service ended with Shaker, standing at the head of the casket as it was lowered into the ground, blowing“Going Home.” This mournful cry, the traditional signal of the end of the hunt, brought everyone to tears.
Afterward, Sybil walked alongside Sister.“Are you going to cancel Tuesday’s hunt?” she asked.
“No. Ralph would be appalled if I did such a thing.”
Shaker, on Sister’s other side, added, “If the fox runs across his grave it will be a good omen.”
“We sure need one,” Sybil said, her eyes doleful.
CHAPTER 34
Tuesday and Thursday’s hunts, sparsely attended, did little to lift Sister’s spirits. Although hounds worked well together, two young ones rioted on deer. Betty pushed the two back, but the miniriot upset Sister even though she knew the youngsters might stray on a deer during cubbing. Diana was settling in as anchor hound with Asa’s help, and that made up for the miniriot.
Saturday’s hunt, on September twenty-eighth, started at seven-thirty in the morning from Mill Ruins, Peter Wheeler’s old place. Walter lived there under a long lease arrangement of the sort usually seen in England. In essence, he owned the property even though Peter had willed it to the hunt club.
During the year he’d lived there, Walter had already made significant improvements. He’d fertilized all the pastures and replaced the collapsed fences with white three-board fencing. White paint, now lead-free, lasted two years if you were lucky. Walter said he didn’t care, he’d paint the damn boards every two years. He loved white fences. Most folks switched to black, since that paint lasted five to seven years depending on the brand. Board fencing itself lasted fifteen years, give or take.
The horrendous expense of stone fencing was actually practical if you considered its life span. A stone fence might need a tap or two of repair over sixty or seventy years, but if properly built by a master stonesmason, stone fences ought to last for centuries.
One of Walter’s secret dreams was, some fine day, to have the drive to the house lined with two-and-a-half-foot stone fences.
Today, Walter was living another of his dreams. This was the first hunt from Mill Ruins since Peter had lived there. It turned into a crackerjack.
Shaker cast down by the old mill, which was redolent of scent. So many generations of foxes had lived near or under the mill, great blocks of natural stone, wheel still intact, that the address among foxes had a certain cachet, say like Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., or East Sixty-eighth Street in New York.
Considered too tony for grays, the place was inhabited by reds.
Naturally, the hounds found scent at the mill, but they didn’t get far with it since that particular fox had no desire for aerobic exercise.
The day, crystal clear, temperature in the middle fifties and climbing, wasn’t the best day for scent. No frost had been on the ground, and the rains of last week were soaking in, although a deep puddle glistened here or there. The high-pressure system that produced those electric blue skies also sucked away moisture, hence scent.
Had Shaker been a lesser huntsman he might have returned to the mill to find another line. Shaker and Sister thought once you drew a cover, move on, don’t dawdle. Occasionally they could blow over a fox clever enough to lie low as hounds moved through perhaps a trifle too quickly. But more often than not, moving along, especially if your pack had good noses, flushed more foxes than inching through every twig, holly bush, and scrap of moss.
He sat on Gunpowder and thought for a moment as hounds moved along the millrace and back to the strong running stream that fed it.
Gunpowder, wise in the ways of the sport, snorted,“Draw an S. Move up higher and snake down. If youcatch him high, he’ll probably come back low. If you catchhim low, unless he belongs on the other side of this fixture,I bet you he stays low.”