After about five minutes, Shaker tapped his hat with his horn, leaned down, and spoke encouragingly to Cora, his strike hound. She rose up on her hind legs to get closer to this man she worshipped. Then he said,“Come long,” and his pack obediently followed as he rode out of the forest, taking the second tiger trap jump as Betty Franklin took the first. If the pack and the huntsman were a clock, the strike hound being at twelve, Betty stayed at ten o’clock, Sybil at two, the huntsman at six.
Sister, thirty yards behind Shaker, sailed over the tiger trap. Most of the other riders easily followed, but a few horses balked at the sight of the upright logs, leaning together just like a trap. The snow didn’t help the nervous; resting along the crevices, it created an obstacle that appeared new and different.
As riders passed the sugar maple, Cora began waving her stern. The other hounds became interested.
Dragon, a hotheaded but talented third-year hound and the brother to Diana, bellowed,“It’s her! It’s her!”
The thick odor of a vixen lifted off the snow.
Cora, older, and steady even though she was the strike hound, paused a moment.“Yes, it is a vixen, but something’s not quite right.”
Diana, her older brother, Dasher, and Asa and Ardent also paused. At nine, the oldest hound in the pack, Delia, mother of the D litters, usually brought up the rear. While her youthful speed had diminished, her knowledge was invaluable. Delia, too, put her nose to the snow.
The other hounds looked at her, even her brash son, Dragon.“It’s a vixen all right, but it is extremely peculiar,” Delia advised.
“Well, maybe she ate something strange,”Dragon impatiently spoke.“Our job is to chase foxes, and it doesn’tmatter if they’re peculiar or not. I say we give this field another run for their money.”
Cora lifted her head to again look at Shaker.“Well, it isa vixen and whatever is wrong with the line, I guess we’llfind out.”
With the hounds opening, their vibrant voices filled the air with a music as lush to the ear of a foxhunter as the Brandenburg Concertos are to a musician.
No matter how many times she heard her pack in full cry, it always made the hair stand up on the back of Sister’s neck.
They glided across the hayfield, soared over the stone jumps on the other side, plunged into the woods as they headed for a deep creek that fed the apple orchards for which Orchard Hill was known.
The cardinal once again left off the millet and flew back up into the oak tree.
“Bother,”he grumbled to his mate.
“Maybe they’ll turn up more seed,”his shrewd helpmate answered.
The hounds, running close together, passed under the oak, followed by Shaker, then Sister and the field.
They ran flat out for twenty minutes, everyone sweating despite the cold. The baying of the pack now joined the baying of the splinter group.
It sounded queer.
Shaker squeezed Showboat. A true huntsman’s horse, Showboat would die before he’d join the rest of the field. He would be first and that was that.
“What in the goddamned hell!” Shaker shouted. He put his horn to his lips, blowing three long blasts. “Leave him! Leave him!”
The hounds stared up at Shaker. The vixen scent was so strong it made their eyes water, but they weren’t crawling over a vixen.
Betty rode up as did Sybil, each staying back a bit so as to contain the pack just in case. Each woman’s face registered disbelief. Betty put her gloved hand to her mouth to stifle a whoop of hilarity.
Sister rode up. There, curled into a ball, was deer hunter Donnie Sweigert. His expensive rifle with the one-thousand-dollar scope was clutched to his chest. His camouflage overalls and coat were encrusted with snow, slobber, and a drop or two of hound markings. She wondered where Donnie found the money for his expensive gear. He was a driver for Berry Storage.
Shaker kept calling back his pack, but they didn’t want to separate from the terrified Donnie.
“What’ll I do?” the cowering man hollered.
Shaker gruffly replied,“Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye, you blistering idiot!” He spoke sharply to his hounds now. “Leave him! Leave him!”
Shaker turned Showboat back toward the hayfield. The hounds, reluctant at first to leave this human drenched in vixen scent, did part from their odd treasure.
Dragon couldn’t resist a parting shot at Donnie.“Andyou think we’re dumb animals.”
Sister, as master, couldn’t tell Donnie that she thought covering his human scent with fox scent remarkably stupid. She needed to be a diplomat. “Don, are you in one piece?”
“Yes.” He unsteadily rose to his feet.
The fox scent, like a sweet skunk, was so overpowering even the members of the field could smell Donnie.
“Would you like help getting back to your truck?” She winked at Walter Lungrun. “Walter will take you back. And he’s a doctor, so if anything should be wrong, he’ll fix you right up.”
“I’m fine.” Donnie was still recovering from his fright.
“No one bit you. They would never bite anyone, Don, but, well, you have to admit, the situation is unique.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sighed.
“Tell you what.” She smiled, and what an incandescent welcoming smile it was. “If you want to, come hunt Monday morning at my place back by the peach orchard. Maybe that will make up for our spoiling your sport today.”
He brightened.“Thank you, Sister.”
“And Don, don’t cover your scent with vixen, hear? Just stay on the backside of the wind. I’m sure you’ll get a big one.”
“Uh, yes, ma’am.”
With that, Sister followed Shaker and the hounds back to the hayfield, back to the tiger trap jumps.
“Edward, take the field a moment, will you?”
Tall, elegant Edward Bancroft touched the top of his hunt cap with his crop.
Sister rode up to Shaker, tears in his eyes from laughing.
“Oh, God, that man is dumb as a sack of hammers.”
She laughed, too.“Donnie Sweigert isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but to make amends I’m letting him hunt the peach orchard Monday morning. He’ll forgoeau de vulpus.”
At this they both laughed so loudly a few of the hounds laughed out loud, too. That only made the humans laugh harder. The hounds took this as a cue to sing.
“All right, all right.” Shaker wiped his eyes as the hounds ended their impromptu carol.
“We’ve had a pretty good day, all things considered. Let’s lift these hounds and go home.”
“Yes, boss.” He touched his cap with his horn.
Later at the breakfast held at Orchard Hill’s lovely 1809 white clapboard house, the mirth increased with each person’s retelling of the situation.
Clay Berry told everyone that come Monday morning he’d present Donnie with a bottle of cologne. He’d also give Donnie a fixture card so he could stay away from fox hunts.
“Do you really think humans can disguise their scent? Would a deer have been fooled?” Jennifer Franklin, Betty’s teenage daughter, asked Walter. She had a crush on Walter, as did every woman in the hunt club.
“I don’t know.” Walter smiled. “You’ll have to ask Sister that one.”
He motioned for Sister to join them. Walter was a well-built man; he’d played halfback at Cornell, and even during the grueling hours of medical school and his internship, he had worked out religiously. Sister stood next to him. At six feet, she was almost as tall as he. She’d lost an inch or so with age.
Those meeting Jane Arnold for the first time assumed she was in her middle fifties. Lean, strong, her silver hair close cropped because she couldn’t stand “hat head” from her hunt cap, she had an imposing yet feminine presence.
Walter repeated the question. She thought a moment, then replied as she touched Jennifer’s shoulder. “I expect a deer or any of us can be fooled for a little while, but sooner or later your real odor will rise on up, and then you’ll be standing like truth before Jesus.”