The small thermometer in the dash on Sister’s truck had read thirty-four degrees when she had first pulled into After All Farm. Now, as she and Lafayette walked north with hounds alongside the strong-running Snake Creek, the temperature remained close to that. She could feel it on her skin. The bright blue winter skies were cloudless. The frost sparkled on the earth. All pointed to a tough day for scent. But a light northwesterly breeze, a tang of moisture coming in, hinted that maybe in two hours or less, conditions would improve.
In the meantime, she needed to do all she could to flush out a fox. She walked for five minutes, quietly talking to the pack. Settling them, especially with young entry in tow, helped them and helped her. After a long discussion, she and Shaker had decided to include some young entry. Shaker was already on his way, Lorraine as a passenger, to the sunken farm road close to the westernmost border of the Bancroft estate, a border shared with Roughneck Farm.
Knowing she had Shaker as a wheel whip bolstered her confidence. Knowing Betty rode on her left and Sybil on her right also gave her a lift.
“Girl power,” she whispered.
Diana looked up at the human she adored.“You’d betterbelieve it.”
“Ha,”Asa said.
“Bet you one of us finds scent first,”Diana challenged him.
“I’ll take that bet. What about the rest of you boys?” Asa sang out, but not too loudly or Sister would chide him for babbling.
Dasher, Ardent, Trident, Darby, Doughboy, Dreamboat, Rassle, and Ribot quickly picked up the gauntlet.
Cora, up front, smiled, a puff of breath coming from her slightly opened mouth.“Girls, even if we run on rocks allday, we are going to find a fox!”
The girls agreed, then all turned their faces up to their master and now huntsman.
Sister smiled down at them.“Good hounds.”
A powerful emotion burst through her. She was of this pack. She was one of them, the least of them in many ways, and yet the leader. The only love she had ever felt that was this deep was when Ray Jr. used to wrap his arms around her neck and say,“Love ya, Mom.”
She whispered,“Ride with me today, Junior,” then turned her full attention to drawing up the creek bed.
The grade rose by degrees, until Sister and the pack were walking six feet above the creek. The drop into the creek was now sheer. Where eddies slowly swirled, a crust of ice gathered next to the banks.
The smooth pasture containing Nola Bancroft’s grave soon gave way to woodlands.
Behind her, Edward led a field of sixty-five people. Everyone came out today because the snows had made them stir-crazy. This was the first good day since then. Before the first cast, Sister noted that Xavier and Sam kept a careful distance between them. Clay, Walter, Crawford, Dalton, Marty, Jennifer, Sari, Ron, plus visitors, all came out.
She also noted, walking a distance behind them, were Jason Farley with Jimmy Chirios. Bless Tedi and Edward, they found someone to guide a newcomer who couldn’t ride but showed interest.
A warm air current fluttered across her face, a welcoming sign.
“Get ’em up. Get ’em up.”
The hounds, also feeling wind current, a lingering deer scent sliding along with it, put their noses down, fanned out, moving forward at a brisk walk. Raccoons, turkeys, bobcat, deer, and more deer had traipsed through in the predawn hours. Rabbits abounded, now safely tucked in their little grass hutches or hunkered down as flat as they could get. Foxhounds might chase a rabbit for a few bounds if the animal hopped up in front of them, but otherwise the scent offered scant appeal.
Tinsel got a snootful of badger scent.“Cora.”
Cora came over.“Must be more moving in. Strange, strange.”
Young Ruthie, wonderful nose, inhaled, then sputtered a moment.“A heavy fox, a heavy fox.”
Heavy meant pregnant. Dasher and Asa hurried over. Both sniffed, sniffed some more, and then jerked their heads up. Ruthie, in her youth, had made the wrong call.
Cora came over. She inhaled deeply.“Coyote.”
“Dammit!”Asa swore. He knew how ruinous coyotes were to livestock, house pets, and foxes. In his mind, the foxes’ welfare outweighed the others.
Sister noticed, stopped Lafayette. Both human and horse carefully watched.
“Can we run coyote?”Rassle, Ruthie’s littermate, asked.
Cora hesitated for a second.“Yes. They’re fair game,but,”she raised her alto voice,“young ones, they runstraight, they run no faster than they must; occasionallyone will double back, but this is really a foot race. Don’tforget that. If anywhere along the way, any of you finds foxscent, stop. Stop and tell me. The fox is our primaryquarry, understand?”
“Yes,”all responded.
Diana, her voice low, said to Asa,“Thank God, Dragon’sstill back in the kennel.”
Asa chuckled.“Right.”
“Ruthie, you found, sing out.”Cora encouraged the youngster.
“Rock and roll.”Ruthie lifted her head a bit then all joined her.
Hounds went from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. Sister, eyes widened, at first didn’t know they were on coyote. Could be fresh fox scent.
Hounds threaded through the woods, pads touching lightly down on the narrow cleared trail. They clambered over a fallen tree, kept on, then burst out of the woods, leaping over the hog’s back jump in the fence line separating After All Farm from Roughneck Farm. They’d covered two miles in minutes.
The electrifying pace only increased as they charged through the meadows, blasted along the edges of the wide wildflower field, the stalks of the odd wisps of broom sage bent with winter’s woes, the earth beginning to slightly soften, releasing ever more scent on this crisp day.
As Sister flew along behind her hounds, she noticed they headed straight for the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge. A large dark gray cloud peeped over the uppermost edge of this long formidable ridge.
Hounds circled the bottom of the ridge. On the Soldier Road side, they abruptly cut up the ridge on an old deer trail.
Lafayette effortlessly followed, his long stride making the ride comfortable.
Sister blew a few strangled notes when hounds first took off. Now she relied on her voice. She whooped and hollered, shouting as she and Lafayette began to climb to the top of the ridge.
Halfway up, they were enshrouded in a thick veil of white mist. By the time they reached the top, she could barely see fifty yards ahead of her. The heavy moisture in the low cloud felt clammy.
Onward and upward hounds roared. As they passed the hanging tree, they ignored the mournful spirits there. The wind rustled that strange low howl, whistling at a varying pitch just as Sister rode by. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the specter of a well-dressed eighteenth-century gentleman standing next to a Confederate veteran in full uniform.
“Balls,” she said out loud, and heard a ghostly snicker.
She loathed this place. Lafayette snorted. They galloped, clods of thawing turf flying up behind his hooves, to the end of the ridge, down the wide dirt road, the last road the convicted ever trod.
Then along the farm road—faster and faster, farther and farther—past the turn into her farm, hounds in the kennel making one hell of a racket, down the farm road, out to the tertiary road, the briefest of checks.
Sister dropped her head, then tipped it back, gulping air. She turned her head, looking back. Behind her, the clouds slid from the ridge, some fingering down the Blue Ridge Mountains as well. Weather was not just making its way in from the west, it was coming full throttle.
She saw Edward emerge at the bottom of the ridge, a dot in bright red.
“Cross the road,”Ardent sounded.