“All right,” Walter called back.
Bobby, bringing up the rear, had visions of picking up people like scattered croquet balls. But he was a foxhunter, and foxhunters stay with hounds.
Sister trotted along, spied a rock outcropping, its red streak glistening like blood in the moisture-laden air. Curious. A narrow path forked off from the left of this rock, which would bring her near the coop much more quickly than if she stayed on the wider path. She decided to chance it.
She squeezed her legs, Aztec extending his trot; he had a lovely floating trot, easy on an old back. The club hadn’t brushed back this trail, one of those jobs waiting to be knocked out before Opening Hunt. She crouched low, her face alongside Aztec’s muscled neck.
“Take care of me, honey.”
“Piece of cake,” he snorted.
Ralph, Xavier, Walter, and Ronnie cut left by the rock, hoofbeats fading away in front of them. Wordlessly they moved out. Behind them came Ken, Jennifer, and Sari, excited at hounds in full cry and the wildness of the morning.
Bobby kept pushing up stragglers.
Enough people had slid by Crawford when they had the chance that he and Marty rode in the middle of the group, which he didn’t like. He so wanted to be in the master’s pocket on this day, but he couldn’t hang in there. He wasn’t quite enough of a rider. Czapaka, a big warmblood and not as nimble as some of the other smaller horses, bulled through the narrow path; a low-hanging pine bough smacked Crawford in the face, disturbing a squirrel up above.
“Watch it,” the squirrel chattered.
“You’re nothing but a rat with more fur,” Czapaka called over his shoulder, which caused the squirrel to throw pinecones on following riders and scream at the top of his lungs. Squirrels aren’t known for their emotional self-control.
Sister emerged from the overgrown path knowing the three-board fence should be twenty yards in front of her; Jimmy kept all the fence lines clear. This fence line was the dividing line between After All Farm and Roughneck Farm, with Broad Creek cutting through both properties as it flowed in a southerly direction. The old boundary had been set with squared-off stones back in 1791, when the original land grant was subdivided. The stones stood to this day.
Sister slowed. She didn’t want to run into the fence, plus she knew Aztec, bursting with talent, would just lift off and clear the fence. She thought it unwise to ask some of the riders behind her to follow suit. The coop, once she found it, would be more prudent.
Off in the distance she heard Diana’s voice, and Cora’s bel canto. “Fly! Fly! Fly!” The other hounds in chorus, “Yes.”
“Where is that damned coop?” she whispered, eager to be with her hounds.
A blackened shape interrupted the fence line.
“That’s it.” Aztec curved to the right, then swung to the left with long, fluid strides to hit the spot perfectly in front of the coop, the rain-soaked earth squishing underneath his hooves. He gave an extra surge of power because of the footing, clearing the coop with a foot to spare, which made Sister laugh as she hadn’t expected Aztec to jump so big. He was still young, inclined to overjump.
“Good boy.” She patted his neck.
Behind her she heard Tedi land, then Edward, both superbly mounted, as always. She headed left again, following the face of the corn.
Shaker was in the cornfield, behind his hounds. Betty sat now on the farm road, waiting for the hounds to emerge like small ghosts from between the straight-planted rows.
She heard Shaker’s high-pitched “Whoop.” If he was going to turn or call them back, she’d hear the horn, the three or four long, piercing notes of equal length.
Betty hoped Sybil was on the far side of the cornfield. She couldn’t see a thing, contenting herself with the knowledge that no one else could, either.
The bulk of the pack now ran thirty paces behind Dragon. Delia, bringing up the rear, was fifty paces behind.
Charlie scampered over the zigzag fence, ran between Outlaw’s legs for effect.
“Gotcha!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Both Betty and Outlaw, hearts in their mouths, had to settle themselves for a second, then Betty laughed. The gall of that fox.
“Outlaw,” she whispered. “Steady yourself. The whole pack is going to run right through us.”
He twitched his ears forward and back. “Okay.” Within two minutes they did just that, then Betty jumped over the fence on the opposite side of the farm road and was swallowed by the fog. She was heading for the orchard. Had she been able to see she would have spurred on Outlaw the minute Charlie ran between her legs, but she couldn’t. She thought the wiser course was to let the hounds blow through her; she wouldn’t hurt anyone that way and she could ride hard through the orchard, a kind of shortcut.
Sister, face wet from corn leaves, heard the flap, flap, flap behind her as other riders were getting it full in the face. There was no ducking the corn, the silken red tassels loaded with the moisture.
She felt clammy. The dew point was soggy to the max. Then Sister felt the first drops of a drizzle. She blasted out of the corn row, lifted over the zigzag fence, hooves sunk into the farm road, the red clay now viscous. She hooked left.
Shaker, ahead, blew them on.
Before she knew it, she’d jumped over the zigzag fence on the opposite side of the road and headed straight into the apple orchard. The scent of the apples, almost ready to be picked, filled the air.
The voices of the hounds suddenly stopped.
Trident whispered, “What happened?”
Diana said, “We’ve lost the scent.”
Dragon, furious, growled, “I was right behind him! He’s got to be here!”
Shaker rode up to his hounds. “Try on. Eee-lou.”
Dutifully, all hounds put their noses to the ground, but nothing. A youngster wanted to run heel, but Cora put her right.
“But it’s good here,” Rassle whined.
“I know, but you’re heading backwards. Must stay forward.” Diana confirmed Cora’s correction.
The field finally caught up. Betty stayed on the other side of the apple orchard since Shaker didn’t blow her in.
Sybil was at the foot of Hangman’s Ridge; having gotten herself turned around, she finally found her way out by following first the creek bed, then emerging into the north side of the cornfield. She followed a row in the fog and drizzle to the farm road at the base of the ridge.
Sister rode up to Shaker. “You know, we’d better call it a day.”
“Damn, how could he give us the slip like that!”
“I don’t know. He’s got some kind of mojo, but the fog isn’t lifting. If anything, Shaker, it’s thickening and my built-in weather station”—she tapped her collarbone broken in the seventies—“tells me this drizzle will be a downpour soon enough.”
“Okay.” He put his horn to his lips, blowing in his whippers-in.
“Thank God,” Betty thought to herself as she picked her way through the fog back down into the apple orchard.
Betty couldn’t understand how Charlie could turn his scent off. If he’d ducked into a den, they’d know. But he’d vanished. Not a trace.
Sister turned to face the field, huddled together, exhilarated that they’d survived the fog hunt, as it would come to be known. “Folks, well done. This wasn’t an easy task, but it was an exciting one.” She turned to Edward. “Do you mind leading people home? Since I’m here I thought Aztec and I would road hounds back to the kennels. We’ll come back to pick up the hound wagon.”