Ronnie liked Izzy well enough, but she was impressed with her beauty and impressed with money a bit too much for him. His eyes darted over the field today. He’d known some of these people all his life. The newer ones brought fresh ideas and energy, and he had to admit that he learned from them. Pretty much he liked everyone out there, although Crawford irritated him. He wasn’t overfond of Dalton Hill either.
Hounds reached the field across from the peach orchard, the low gray clouds offering hope of moisture and scent. The temperature clung to a steady thirty-nine degrees. The layer of fresh snow had had enough time to settle in, pack down a bit. The going might be icy in spots but mostly, if the horses had borium on their shoes, they should be okay.
A blacksmith charged $105 to shoe with borium, a bit of metal powder put onto the shoes. Some people put caulks in their horses’ shoes, a kind of stud. Some could even be screwed in and then screwed out. Sister hated studs, refusing to use them. Like most horsemen, she had strong likes and dislikes. She had visions of her horse tearing the hell out of himself with studs if he overreached or stumbled, then scrambled,hitting his forefeet with his hind or catching the back of his foreleg. It wouldn’t do.
As she watched Shaker cast hounds into the field, a wave of envy swept over her. Shaker was right. Once you hunt the hounds, you never want to go back. Still, she was a sensible woman. He was a gifted huntsman, and Jefferson Hunt was lucky to have him. She’d content herself with leading the field.
Trident picked his way over the snow. Trudy, Tinsel, and Trinity were out, along with Darby, Doughboy, Dreamboat, Dana, Delight, Diddy, Ribot, Rassle, and Ruthie.
Cora hoped the youngsters would keep it together. She, like Sister, felt good about their progress. A day like today could be tricky. The conditions seemed favorable, but the full moon last night generally made for a dull hunt. Cora hoped they could pick up a visiting red dog fox.
Nellie, Diana, Delia, Dasher, Dragon, Asa, Ardent, and the other veterans, like a scrimmage line sweeping forward, moved over the terrain.
Back in the house, Raleigh and Rooster were furious because Sister locked their dog door to the outside. Both dogs would shadow the hounds if they could, and they had no business doing that. Golly relished their misery.
“Maybe we’ll pick up Grace?”Trident said.
“Too far for her on a cold night like last night. She’s overthere at Foxglove by the water wheel.”Asa had a fondness for the small red.
“What about Aunt Netty?”Ribot inhaled rabbit odor.
“Figure that any scent you get will most likely be dogfox,”Delia instructed Ribot.“The vixens sit because theyknow the dog foxes will come to them. If you do get avixen’s trail, chances are she hunted a bit; you’re picking her up going back to her den, especially now.”
“Then why did we get long runs on vixens in late October?”Ruthie puzzled over this.
“The young fox entry, so to speak, left home to find theirown dens. Don’t you worry over that now,”Delia instructed.“I’m telling you what I’ve learned over the years,though if there is one thing I have learned about foxes, it’sto expect the unexpected. For all I know, Ruthie, a vixenwill show up and give us a ripping go today. They are peculiar creatures, foxes.”
Nellie, another old girl, giggled.“That’s what Shakersays about women: They’re as peculiar as foxes.”
“Hasn’t said much like that since he took a fancy to Lorraine.”Ardent laughed.
The hounds laughed with him. If the humans heard, it would have sounded as though they were letting their breath out in little bursts.
Dragon, although pushing up front, was subdued. He kept half a step behind Cora, off to her right. For her part, next time he challenged her, she’d kill him. She was the head bitch as well as the strike hound, and she was in no mood to put up with any more bad behavior.
They pushed through the field heading east, toward After All Farm.
“Not much.”Ardent caught a faint line.“It’s Comet.”
“Let’s follow it, Ardent. Might be all we’ll get today. Ifwe’re lucky, it will heat up.”Cora trusted Ardent completely.
The hounds moved with Ardent as he turned northward. The scent warmed but remained faint until they crossed over the thin ice, breaking it, on a small feeder into Broad Creek.
“Better. Better,”Asa called, and hounds opened.
Bare in the winter light, old silky willows, some fourteen feet high, dotted the path of the stream. Lafayette picked his way through the trappy ground, took a hop over the stream, trotting after hounds who were moving steadily but not with speed.
For twenty minutes, hounds pursued this line until they wound up at the base of Hangman’s Ridge. Scent turned back along the edge of the farm road, heading back toward the peach orchard. Hounds took the half leap off the road, sunken with time and use, up into the peach orchard.
Betty, out in the open field on the left of the road, wondered if the fox might be close by. She was in a good spot to see him break cover.
Sybil, on the right, was at the edge of the peach orchard. Hounds moved through, baying stronger, moving at a faster trot. They cleared the orchard, crossed the grassy wide path separating the peach orchard from the apple orchard, then plunged into the apple orchard. They began a leisurely lope, Cora square on the line, but she no sooner reached the halfway point in the apple orchard than she turned a sharp left.
Betty intently, silently watched.
Shaker, on Showboat, followed. The scent was stronger now.
Comet, bright red, crossed the open field, glancing at Betty. He moved to the easternmost edge, jumped on the hog’s back jump and from there to the fence line. Balancing himself, he carefully walked northward for one hundred yards, jumped off the fence line on the far side, and slipped into the woods.
Tempting though it was to follow the fox and have her own personal hunt, Betty patiently waited for the lead hounds to appear. Three minutes later, they broke from the apple orchard. Four minutes later, the bulk of the pack pressed behind Cora, Dragon, and Dasher. Betty could now see Shaker cantering through the snowy lane between apple rows. As the lead hounds drew even with her, she turned Outlaw and kept with them about ten o’clock off of Cora’s twelve o’clock. The field, slushy in parts, demanded a tight seat.
Hounds, much lighter than a twelve-hundred-pound horse, easily negotiated the terrain. They climbed over the hog’s back, then stopped.
“Hold hard,” Sister commanded.
The field reined in behind her, a few bumps here and there, a few curses muttered under someone’s breath.
“I can’t find him. All I have is the scent on the hog’sback,”Ruthie, excellent nose, barked.
“Keep calm, Ruthie. Foxes don’t disappear into thin airmuch as they want us to think they do,”Diana reassured her.
The field fanned out to get a better look, Clay and Izzy together—unusual because Izzy usually rode in the back with her gal pals. Sam Lorillard kept well to the rear and couldn’t see a thing. Gray, too, couldn’t see anything in the middle of the people, but he thought it unwise to go too far out in the field for a look in case the hounds turned. Those people craning their necks could be standing right on scent, ruining it for hounds if enough of them tore up the snow and the earth underneath.
Hounds milled about for two or three minutes.
Ardent suggested they move along the fence line in both directions with a splinter group going ahead from the hog’s back in case the fox had managed to make a big leap of it.
“Have to be really big,”Delia mumbled.