Hotspur Read Online Free PDF Page A

away, drop them with me. The S litter”—Sister mentioned a robust litter of foxhound puppies whelped in mid-May—“need walking out and handling. And you know they’re always as welcome as you are.”
    â€œThank you.” Ken placed his large hand on her shoulder. Apart from a slight paunch, he was holding his own against middle age. A few strands of gray appeared in his sandy hair and eyebrows. A small bald spot like a tonsure bore testimony to the encroaching years, but one had to be taller than Ken to see it.
    Later, as Sister and Shaker drove back through the continuing rain, Shaker loosened his dark blue tie. “Had the damndest feeling.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWell”—he paused, then sheepishly looked over at Sister—“I think I’ve seen too many TV mysteries.”
    â€œWhat?” she persisted, knowing he’d have to work up to anything that couldn’t be proven by logic.
    â€œWell, I felt that somebody in that room knew—knew what had really happened to Nola.”

CHAPTER 4
    The windshield wipers on the Mercedes S500 flipped at their highest speed as Crawford Howard and his wife, Marty, drove back toward town. They had met and married at the University of Indiana, made a fortune in strip malls, moved to central Virginia, divorced, and remarried, all before age forty-seven. Surprisingly, neither of them appeared exhausted by this process.
    â€œHoney, slow down.” Marty involuntarily shrank back as the water from puddles splashed against her side window.
    â€œThis machine can handle everything.”
    â€œThis machine must still obey the laws of physics,” she wryly replied. But knowing how he loathed being corrected, she hastened to add, “Edward was glad to see you. I know you’ve had a long day, but thank you for making the effort.”
    He slowed to forty-five miles an hour. “That girl must have been something. Those photographs of her all over the house—really something.”
    The Howards had moved to Jefferson Hunt Country after Nola’s disappearance.
    â€œDon’t you think people are jumping to conclusions?” Marty’s voice rose.
    â€œWhat? That she was murdered?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œHoney, people don’t commit suicide and bury themselves. If they commit suicide, sooner or later the body is found. And she disappeared in September, so you know she would have been found quick enough.”
    â€œBetty Franklin said the last time anyone saw her alive was at a party Sorrel Buruss gave for the first day of cubbing. But you’re right. It’s still hot in September.”
    â€œA first-day-of-cubbing party. That’s a good idea.”
    Foxhunting rarely opened with a home run, more like a base hit. Cubbing introduced young entry, those hounds hunting for their first year, to the young foxes, being hunted for the first time. The older hounds and hunt staff helped steady the youngsters, keeping them running between the bases instead of straying off into center field. The young foxes, with a bit of luck, learned the rules from the older foxes, but in case a youngster was caught unawares, many a huntsman would steer his pack away to save the fox. If the pack couldn’t be deterred, if scent was just flaming, a whipper-in would do his or her best to warn the fox. If hounds were far enough away, the whipper-in would speak to the fox. The sound of a human voice usually set the fox to running. If hounds were close, the whipper-in would smack his or her boot with their crop. The sound alerted the fox. The whipper-in didn’t want to use his or her voice, if possible, in those circumstances, for the hounds would know the human’s voice.
    No one wanted to kill a fox under any circumstances, whether in cubbing or later in formal hunting. American foxhunting was purely about the thrill of the chase—the joy of good hound work and hard riding. Unfortunately, most