One of St. Just’s distinguishing features, apart from his vibrantly blue-black coat, was his burning hatred of foxes, and of all those foxes, Target had earned his special venom after killing St. Just’s mate.
The crow alighted on a drooping, naked, weeping cherry branch, an ornamental tree flourishing at the edge of the covert, thanks to a bird eating the seeds of another cherry tree miles away, then depositing them here.
“Cora, Cora,”he cawed.“Visiting red heading back toMill Ruins. He crossed the old retaining walls at the pumphouse.”Having said that, he lifted to higher altitudes.
Diana, hearing this, asked Cora,“If we don’t get theresoon, the scent will be gone.”
Young Diddy asked,“Why can’t we just run over there?”
“Because Shaker, Betty, Sybil, and Sister will think we’rerioting. We have to find a way to swing Shaker to ourright,”Cora informed her.
“Oh.”Diddy now had another rule to remember. This hunting stuff was complicated.
“Well, we can feather, but not open and move that way,” Diana sensibly suggested.“We aren’t lying. We aren’t rioting. We haven’t opened. Once we pick up the scent, then we can open. Shaker will never know. Humans can’t smella thing.”
“Hmm.”Cora considered this, then spoke, low, to the pack.“Follow Diana and me. Feather. St. Just swears a redisn’t far, moving east from the pump house. I think this is our only hope of a run today. Don’t open unless you reallysmell fox. Dragon, did you hear me?”
Indignant, Dragon snapped,“I do not babble.”
“Well, you do everything else,”Cora snapped right back, then put her nose down.“Follow me. We have to move quickly. Noses down, of course, and feather. It willgive Sister and Shaker confidence.”
Darby, nose down, whispered to Asa,“Is it true, reallytrue, that humans can’t smell?”
“ ’Fraid it is, son. Can’t run either. Now if the scent isstrong, mating scent, and it’s a warm day, the scent can riseup, then even a human can catch it. Of course, by then it’sover our head, so it won’t be a good day’s hunting.”
Doughboy, ears slightly lifted, questioned,“But if theycan’t smell, how do they survive?”
Ardent supplied the answer.“Totally dependent on theireyes. Their ears used to be okay, but the last two generations of humans, according to Shaker, have lost thirty percent of their hearing or worse before forty, which is like sixor seven years for us.”
“Why?”Delight couldn’t imagine such a thing: no nose and bum ears.
“Decibel levels. They’ve destroyed their hearing by turning up rock music, rap music. Just fritzes ’em right out.” Delia could see they were nearly out of the heavy covert. The pump house was up ahead.“Don’t worry about humans. Worry about getting a line. If we can run a fox on aday like today, young one, we’ll be covered in glory.”
Dragon bumped Dasher. His brother, outraged, snarled and bumped him hard right back. Dragon bared his teeth.
“Settle!”Cora commanded.
Neither dog hound would be so foolish as to cross the queen of the pack. She wouldn’t hesitate to take them down, and Asa and Ardent would be right with her. The two angry brothers would then sport more holes than Swiss cheese.
Diddy, hearing the snarls, swerved to the right. Although young, she couldn’t help but push up front with her marvelous drive and good speed. Heartening as this was to observe, Cora kept her eye on the gyp. In her first year, it would be easy for her to make mistakes. But Diddy couldn’t keep herself in the middle of the pack where she’d be carried along by the tried and true hounds.
However, at this moment, Diddy’s drive and position saved the day. She moved forty yards from the pack. Sybil on the right noticed this, carefully moving ahead of the hound in case she needed to push Diddy back. Anticipation is half the game. If you can prevent a hound from squirting out, it’s far better than searchingfor the hound if she doesn’t come back to the horn. And it’s a foolish whipper-in who abandons the whole pack to turn one errant hound. Sybil also read Diddy’s body language; the youngster wasn’t going to bolt.
Suddenly Diddy stopped, rigid, her stern straight up in the air, nose glued to the ground not five yards from the crumbling stone retaining wall.
“What do I do? What do I do?”Diddy thought to herself.“If I’m wrong, Cora will let me have it, but … butfox, this is a fox!”She took a deep breath, her nostrils filling with the fading but unmistakable scent of a red dog fox pungent in courting perfume. Working up her courage, she said in a faltering voice,“Fox.”Then she spoke with a bit more authority.“Fox, fading line.”
Cora lifted her head, raced to the young hound, put her nose down. Under her breath she praised Diddy,“Goodwork. It’s Clement, a young red.”Then she kept her nose down and spoke in her sonorous voice,“Get on it. Fadingfast!”
The pack flew to Cora, opening as they trotted on the line. They crossed the other retaining wall, found the line again, and kept moving, not running flat out as scent was too thin. Better to keep it under nose than pick up speed, overrun, or lose it altogether. The hounds understood scent.
Sister might not be able to smell squat, but she knew to trust her hounds. Aztec pricked his ears, his own nostrils widening. He wanted to run.
“Steady,” Sister said in a low voice.
“But I know they’re on!”Aztec trembled.
Sam, on the new timber horse, Cloud Nine, realized he was going to need a tight seat if they took off. Tedi, hearing the snorting behind her, and possessing a keen sense of self-preservation, reined in for a second as Sam passed. No point in getting run over. She just hoped Sam wouldn’t be on a runaway. Even the best of jockeys endure that at one time or another.
Once on the far side of an overgrown meadow, not yet tidied up by the Greens because it was far from the house, Nellie paused. Two scent trails crossed. Both were fox. If she called out, the youngsters might come up, get confused. She made an executive decision, pushed straight ahead on the stronger line, believing it was Clement’s. If not, the humans would never know the difference.
A few yards from the convergence of scents, she let out a deep, deep holler.“Heating up. Come on!”Then she moved up from a brisk trot to a long, loping ground-covering run.
Sister and Aztec, happy to be moving out, kept the hounds in sight. Usually Sister would be a tad closer, but the footing was going from bad to worse.
A simple in and out, two coops placed across from each other in parallel fence lines, beckoned. Aztec hit the first perfectly, which meant the second was effortless. He didn’t have to add a stride or take off early. Sister loved this young thoroughbred’s sense of balance; he knew where his hooves were, which can’t be said of every horse. He might do something a little stupid because he was still green, but he was smooth and careful.
Everyone made it over the coops, while Bobby Franklin lost ground opening two red metal farm gates, one crooked on the hinges.
Clement, hearing hounds, knew he was still a long way from his den. He’d been so intent on visiting the vixen, he hadn’t paid attention to potential hiding places should trouble appear. He put on the afterburners, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the lead hounds as he could. That would give him time to think. St. Just shadowed his every move, signaling to Cora what was going on ahead. His cawing brought out other crows, themselves no friend to foxes. Soon the sky, dotted with fourteen crows, added to the panorama of startled deer, disturbed blue jays, and extremely put-out squirrels, chattering filth as hounds, horses, and humansroared under their trees.
When a run becomes this good, the pace this fast, the hell with footing. Sister moved her hands forward, crouched down, and hoped Aztec wouldn’t lose his hind end on an icy patch.