The Fox Hunt

FEATURED AUTHOR—FICTION The Fox Hunt Lisa Alther THE JEEP SHUDDERED ALONG THE DIRT ROAD, its hood bobbing like a duck decoy on rough waters. Sunlight danced through the rust and mustard foliage. Palmer felt like a kid laying out of school. Even if he did own the company. But he was, after all, out here on business. Julius was an expensive dog. His ancestors had been lead hounds for the best hunts in Virginia, right back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But Lucas had implied on the phone this morning that Julius might not make it. He and Lucas rode away from the clearing, Julius hanging across Lucas's saddle, his neck ripped open and oozing black blood. "We'll take him to the vet in Beulah," said Palmer, who had raised Julius from a puppy and helped Lucas train him. Lucas shrugged. "Ain't no use." Palmer sighed. Lucas always turned as fatalistic as a Europeanpeasant in the face of a crisis. "Don't be ridiculous. He'll be fine." Reaching the top of the rise, Palmer surveyed Red Hatcher's bottom land, spread out below like an old burlap feed sack. That soil there along the riverbank used to be pretty rich, but you couldn't say much for it now. Looked like he'd sown winter oats, just sprouting. Red drove his land as hard as the antique tractor he worked it with. The Jeep jolted down the hill, the power lift on the back clanking. Palmer spotted some fresh stumps and brush piles in a woods Red was leveling for more pasture. That man razed rather than cleared. He didn't plow, he gouged. Four boys in bib overalls marched up Rollers's valley, tobacco-stake rifles on their shoulders. Palmer was leading, his Confederate great-grandfather's sword hangingfrom his waist, scabbard tip etching the earth. "Halt-two-three-four!" barked Palmer. "All you men down in that trench on your bellies!" The boys peered into the drainage ditch by the rosa multiflora hedgerow as the enemy closed in. 13 "On the double!" They jumped in, sinking to their knees in mud. Palmer crawled beneath the hedge to inspect the advancing Yankees. Red's carrot-colored crewcut appeared above the Up of the ditch. "Ain't you comin down here too, Palmer?" "Head down, soldier! Do you want it blown off?" Red leapt out ofthe ditch. Twisting Palmer's arm into a hammerlock, he forced him to the edge. "Palmer — sir, I ain't playing at your goddam game no more." He hurled Palmerface-first into the slime and stalked offdown the valley, swinging at grasshoppers with his tobacco stake. Gazing at Palmer with vacant blue eyes, Lucas Bledsoe helped him out of the mud. But he didn't reply when Palmer asked, "Why'd he do thatfor?" Red's fencing needed help fast. A couple of posts had rotted, dragging the barbed wire to the ground. Last week Red had come up to him by the tobacco barn, struggling to sound amiable, despite the stubborn jut to his red-bristled jaw. "Y'all right today, Palmer?" "Fine, thanks, Red. And you?" "Tell you the truth, I got me some problems." He slipped a kitchen matchstick between his lips and began to chew it. "What's up?" asked Palmer, even though he already knew, since he went to Rotary meetings with every banker in town. "Reckon you could make me a loan? Through the winter? Whatever interest you think's fair." Red gazed at the ancient oaks on the far hillside. He was humiliated. But it was his own damn fault. "I'm sorry, Red." He had been too, even though he could see how much better off Red would be in the end. "But I'm no banker. Have you tried Beulah Savings and Loan?" "Hell, they's a mortgage on ever last one of my damn cows." His bony face began to twitch. Palmer shifted his own gaze to the oaks on the hill. "My offer still holds: I cover the bills. We split the profits. Cash for your land. Fair market value. Same as my father did with Lucas...