Mississippi Raider
hunter
had almost descended, speaking in a feminine Southern drawl that had the
suggestion of her having had a good upbringing.
    By the time the confusion caused by the
accident was over, Ole Silver Lightning had found and ascended the
leaning trunk of a scrub oak, which had too steep an incline for
any of the hounds to follow. On finding their quarry had treed, the
hunters gave him best and made no attempt to dislodge him.
    “ I’ll shoot you, you wily
ole son of a bitch, happen we lock horns again,” Joe Lassiter
threatened, but far from seriously, as was proved by his tossing
down the carcass of a hen he had brought for the purpose. With the
ritual over, he set off after the rest of the party.

Chapter Two – Your Poppa Allus Wanted a
Son
    “ L and’s sakes a-mercy, Belle Boyd!” Martha Jonias groaned,
rolling her eyes and gazing toward the ceiling as if in search of
guidance and strength from the heavens. Framed by tightly curled
hair that had become grizzled by the passing of many years, her
normally pleasant and intelligent-looking black face showed a
mixture of annoyance and resignation. Just under six feet in
height, she looked almost as broad and round as she was long, yet
the bulk was not formed by flabby fat. In addition to being firmly
filled, the spotless white frock she was wearing had its sleeves
rolled up to show well-muscled arms. “I surely don’t know what I’m
going to do with you. Almost your eighteenth birthday and still
playing fool games like going a-hunting riding astride ’n’ dressed as a man, for shame. Then
coming home looking like you’d been rolled on by a hoss, which you
nearly was.”
    “ I’ve
a full week to go before my birthday gets here, Auntie Mattie,”
replied the girl who had caused so much surprise for the first-time
visitor to her father’s Baton Royale Manor plantation a short while
earlier. As the result of long experience, she showed no surprise
over the extent of the woman’s knowledge of what had taken place
during the hunt. “Anyway, it will probably be the last time I get a
chance to ride to hounds at night. From now on it will be by daylight —” The strongly emphasized word was accompanied by a
shudder redolent of distaste. “Sidesaddle, all dainty and proper at
that, but nowhere nearly so much fun.”
    Because of Ole Silver Lightning
having treed and the three horses being shaken up by the fall,
Vincent Boyd had decided there would not be any more hunting and the guests had
gone with Joe Lassiter to return and attend to the needs of the
muck ponies they had borrowed. She and her father had brought
theirs to the mansion, but the head groom—who did not trust the task to anybody
else, including his well-liked master and the daughter of the
house, despite having taught her to be competent in that important
part of the equestrian arts, even when they were only muck ponies
and not what he regarded as being real bloodstock—had taken charge
of them.
    Knowing that the horse she had
ridden for the hunt was in the best possible hands and would
receive every care—or she would have insisted upon attending to its
needs personally— the girl had sneaked into rather than just
entered the house to which she would one day become the owner,
according to her parents, without being asked by anyone what had
taken place during the hunt. Given the connivance of her little
colored maid, always a willing supporter in anything she did, she
took a hot bath. Feeling sure her behavior would not be regarded
with approval, she hoped to complete and change into more
conventional attire before the woman who had been her nurse from
the day she was born discovered she was on the premises. As had
been the case so many times in the past when she had sought to
conceal misbehavior from “Auntie Mattie,” the attempt was not entirely
successful. She had finished her ablutions uninterrupted, but found
the old Negro woman waiting with obvious disapproval when she
emerged from the

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