Three couple of young entry were in the pack. Six to watch. The veterans were pretty foolproof.
“East it is.” His voice lowered.
Sister left him and rode to the small field. “Sun’s up. What are we waiting for?” She beamed.
“Here’s to a great season,” Crawford called.
The others murmured their agreement.
“Hounds, please,” Sister called to Shaker.
He slapped his cap on his head and Betty opened the gate. She then quickly swung herself onto Outlaw, as good a horse as was ever foaled if not the most beautiful.
“YAHOO,” the hounds cried.
Thirty couple of hounds bounded out of the kennel, spirits high, then waited for Shaker to blow a low wiggly note followed by a high short one that meant, “We’re on our way.” This was blown as much for the humans as for the hounds. Humans have a tendency to dawdle.
Hounds gaily trotted behind their huntsman, Sybil to their left and Betty to their right. Sister followed forty yards behind, leading the field as the rim of the sun, shocking scarlet, inched over the horizon.
Beyond the apple orchard they passed an old peach orchard, filled with delicious Alberta peaches. Tempting though it was to cast in there, both huntsman and master wanted to reach the sheep’s meadow between the farm road and the woods. That pasture’s rich soil held scent. On a good day, hounds might tease a line into the woods or back toward the orchards and the pace picked up accordingly. Not that hitting a scorching scent right off wasn’t a dream, it was, but sometimes, especially with young ones, a teasing scent helped organize their minds. You never knew with scent.
A black three-board fence marked off the meadow, a coop squatted in the best place to jump. Shaker on Gunpowder, a rangy gray formerly off the racetrack, effortlessly sailed over. His whippers-in had preceded him into the field. Sister could always push up a straggling hound.
“Noses down, young ones!” Cora commanded.
“I got something. I got something!” Trident, a firstyear entry, squealed.
Asa ambled over, sniffled, “Yes, you do, son. That’s a groundhog.”
The other hounds laughed as Trident, ears dropping for a moment, accepted his chastisement, then decided he’d follow Asa. He couldn’t go wrong then.
A sweetish, heavy, lingering line greeted Diana’s sensitive nose as she probed a mossy patch amidst the timothy swaying in the east wind. “Pay dirt.”
Although only in her second year, Diana, tremendously gifted, had earned the respect of the older hounds.
Just to be certain, Asa touched his nose to the spot. “We’re off.”
Both Diana and Asa pushed forward, Cora already ahead of them. Her nose, while not as extraordinary as Diana’s, was plenty good enough. Yes, this line was perhaps fifteen minutes old and, on the dew, the temperature in the low sixties, it would hold for perhaps another five or ten minutes in the hay. Then the rising sun plus the wind would scatter it forever.
Trident inhaled the light fragrance. “This is it! This is it! I’m really hunting. It’s not foxpen. This is the real deal.” He was so overcome, he tripped and rolled over.
Trudy, his littermate, laughed as she moved past him, her nose on the ground. “Showtime!”
Archie used to say “Showtime!” when hounds would find. It made everyone laugh, relaxing yet energizing them.
Hearing their former anchor hound’s phrase from this new kid made the others really laugh.
The scent grew stronger, snaking toward the woods. Whoever left it was in no hurry.
Whoever left it happened to be dozing on a rock outcropping about a quarter of a mile into the woods. Uncle Yancy, a red fox and the husband of Aunt Netty, filled with blackberries, peaches, and grain from Sister’s stable, needed a nap to aid his digestion. Uncle Yancy would frequently sit on the window ledge and watch TV at either Shaker’s or Doug’s cottage. Now that Doug had taken the horn at Shenandoah Valley Hunt, he wondered if anyone would be in there. He could see the picture better from Doug’s window than from Shaker’s. He liked to keep up with the world. Raleigh and Rooster never minded his curiosity, but that damned cat would torment him sometimes. She’d call out to the hounds, “Look who’s here, you lazy sots.” Then some offended creature would open his big mouth and Yancy’d push off.
He lifted his head from his delicate paws. “Oh, bother.”
Bitsy, on her way home from a very successful night, screeched, “They’ll be fast, Uncle Yancy.”
“Ha! The foxhound isn’t born that can keep up with me.”
Bitsy landed on a low maple limb. “Pride goeth before a fall.”
He stretched as the sound grew closer. “Not pride. Simple fact. If you want a good time, fly with me as I send these young ones in the wrong direction. Might even unseat a few humans, too. Why any creature would want to totter around on two legs is beyond me.”
“That’s why they ride horses. Then they have four,” Bitsy sensibly concluded.
“I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, some of them can’t stay on those horses, now can they? A weak and vain species, the human, but a few are quite lovely. Oh well”—he shook himself—“let’s cause as much mayhem as possible.”
He left the rocks, walked down to Broad Creek, crossed it, then climbed out on the other side. He shook off the water.
“I’m telling you, Uncle Yancy, these young ones are fast.”
“Bitsy, they aren’t supposed to run in front of the pack. They’re supposed to run as a pack.”
“That’s what cubbing is for, to teach them. And I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. If St. Just is about, he’ll make trouble.”
St. Just, king of the crows, hated foxes, especially red foxes, because Target, Uncle Yancy’s brother, had killed his mate. St. Just swore revenge on the whole fox nation and he had led one young red to his death last year.
Finally heeding the little owl, Uncle Yancy started trotting east.
“It’s getting stronger!” Trudy yelped as she approached the rocks.
Sybil, up ahead, spied Uncle Yancy slipping through a thick stand of holly. “Tallyho!”
Yancy decided to run after that. He broke out of the holly, crossed an old rutted path, dove into a thick thorny underbrush, then slithered out of that and headed for the edge of the woods.
“Over here.” Dasher, a second-year dog hound, littermate to Diana, reached the edge of the creek the same time as Cora. He splashed across the creek, then began whining because he couldn’t pick up the scent.
“Don’t be a nincompoop!” Cora chided him. “Do you really think a fox is going to walk straight across a creek? You go left, I’ll go right. And who’s to say he didn’t double back? Trudy,” she called to the youngster, “you and your idiot brother work that side of the creek.”