Tuesdays and Thursdays, the numbers in the field remained low until Opening Hunt, perhaps ten to twenty depending on the weather. During formal hunting, Sister Jane averaged about twenty-five on weekdays and sixty on weekends.
Today, Tedi, Edward, Ralph, Xavier, Ronnie, Jennifer Franklin, Crawford, Marty, and Sari Rasmussen, a school friend of Jennifer’s, waited with Sister in the hayfield.
The fox whose fading trail they’d been following, Grace, was a vixen from Target and Charlene’s litter last year. Slender with a lot of black on her mask, she loved to fish in the ponds at Foxglove Farm. These two ponds on different levels had a waterwheel between them, moving water from one level to another, aerating the water. Grace’s mother would shake her head and wonder why any child of hers preferred fishing to sauntering into the barn to eat grain and a few fat barn mice. Foxglove’s house dog, a German shepherd, betrayed no interest in chasing foxes.
Once Grace heard Dragon’s big mouth, she took off, running up the creek, over the rocks, and finally bursting into the hayfield. She knew hounds were far behind her and struggling with scent, so she doubled back on her track and slipped into her brother Reynard’s old den. Reynard, killed last year by an act of human malice, had a roomy den that no other creature currently used. Grace’s den was under one of the barns at Foxglove Farm. She could walk to work, as she put it.
She curled up for a well-earned snooze.
The field waited for ten minutes as the morning sun changed from scarlet to pink to gold.
Betty Franklin, on the left side today, stood at the edge of the hayfield. Sister figured Sybil was still in the woods to the right. Every now and then she heard Shaker’s “Whoop.”
He could blow a beautiful hunting horn but preferred to use his voice until hounds found scent, then he’d call other hounds to the line. When hounds burst out of the covert he’d blow “Gone Away.”
The riders watched the hounds fan out over the field. Sister was very proud of her members, even Crawford, as they didn’t automatically chatter and gossip at checks like this. Since he so desperately wanted to be joint-master, Crawford was now listening intently and making certain his behavior was unimpeachable in the field.
Target heard the hounds as he was heading home from the south side of Hangman’s Ridge. He trotted across the sunken fields, crossed Soldier Road, then loped across the floodplain fields until the earth rose in front of him. He crossed under a three-board fence and entered the swaying hayfields directly across the farm road from where Sister waited.
Every now and then he’d catch a word or two in the distance from Dragon. He laughed to himself.
He walked through the hay, jumped on top of a coop, and sat, waiting for someone in the hayfield opposite to notice him. He was, at most, four football fields distant.
To add insult to injury, he groomed himself.
Edward had kicked his feet out of the stirrups to let his long legs dangle. When he picked up his stirrups again he looked across the field.
“Tallyho,” he whispered.
Tedi passed it up to Sister. “Tallyho.”
Sister’s eyes followed the direction of Edward’s cap. He’d taken off his hunt cap, pointed his arm straight toward the fox, and also pointed his horse’s nose toward Target.
Crawford saw and foolishly bellowed, “Tallyho!”
He should have remained silent. Since hounds diligently kept their noses to the ground, he didn’t spoil anything except he again demonstrated how slender his grasp was of both the necessities and proprieties of hunting.
“Tallyho, yourselves,” Target murmured, and continued grooming.
On ascertaining that Target, whom she recognized, was in no hurry to depart, Sister cupped her hands to her mouth, being certain to holler in the direction of her huntsman. She let out the rebel yell, “Yip yip yo-o-o-o.”
That particular cry alerted Shaker that it was the master viewing and the master was unlikely to “tallyho” a groundhog, house cat, or fawn, each of which had been tallyho’d at one time or another by a member of the field.
He raised his voice to a high pitch. “Come to me. Whoop. Whoop.”
Trinity, although on her very first hunt, knew she was being called back to the huntsman, so she obediently turned, as did her sister, Tinsel. Delia, the mother of Dragon, Diana, and Dasher, called out to the others. Delia, moving a step slow these days, proved invaluable in steadying young ones. If she ran at the back of the pack she didn’t much mind. She’d had her day up front and she didn’t straggle, she stayed with the pack. A hound like Delia is a godsend to a huntsman.
Even Dragon, who resented interference, as he saw it, from Shaker, wanted to chase a fox. If Shaker was calling them, something must be up.
As the hounds returned to the huntsman, Sybil, who had been shadowing the pack on the right side, swung back with them.
Shaker wished to speak to his hounds, not humans. Sybil knew enough to stay on the right, so he merely waved her forward a bit. He was sure she’d learn the ropes quickly, but he hadn’t realized how much he had relied on Doug Kinser, who would have been across the farm road by now.
“Let’s find a fox.” Shaker smiled down at the upturned faces, then squeezed Hojo, a loud paint, his Tuesday horse, into an easy gallop. They moved smartly through the hayfield where the happy sight of the entire field, caps off, pointing to Target, poised on the far coop, greeted him.
Shaker slowed to a trot, let his hounds get up front of him, then urged them toward the farm road. The point was to give Target a chance to run; it would have been unsporting to do otherwise.
He let out a loud “whoop” to wake up the fox.
“What an ugly sound.” Target looked brightly at the huntsman.
Wind swept the golden hay where hounds were working toward him; he could see sterns aloft. Target knew his scent was being blown away from the hounds but, as they closed in, they’d pick up his scent when he moved off. His pads would leave a scentprint for hound noses.
Betty quietly moved forward on the left, at a walk, no need to make a show of it.
Sister held her breath. “What is Target doing?”
“Dragon?”
Dragon lifted his head at the sound of Target’s voice.
Tinsel and Trinity lifted their heads, too. No one had told them about this part.
“You couldn’t find a fox with radar,” Target taunted Dragon, then lifted off the far coop, swirled in midair, and ran flat out through the hay toward the sunken meadows. He figured he’d make a burst straight for his den, only zigging and zagging when he had to throw them off.
“I’ll break your neck!” Dragon roared back, his deep voice sending shivers down the spines of the humans. “Follow me,” he called over his shoulder.
Target had vanished into the hay, but Dragon relied on his nose to find him. He knew he could be fooled by sight and his eyes weren’t as good as a fox’s or a cat’s. But his nose—his nose was superb.
He leapt over the first coop. Why go under the fence line? Give everyone a show! He reached the second, cleared the coop without even touching it, put his nose right to ground on the other side, and let out a soul-stirring note in his rich baritone.
“I’m on!”
Shaker cheered the other hounds toward him. Delia double-checked Dragon’s findings. Dragon was now about fifty yards ahead. “Scorching!”
The young ones got a nose full of burning scent and became so excited that they tumbled over themselves. They picked themselves back up, hoping no one noticed.
All voices lifted to celebrate the thrill of the chase.
Shaker and Hojo smartly sailed over the first coop, raced across the farm road, sunken perhaps a foot below the hayfields, then went up and over the second.