They’d devise their plan, rise early in the morning, open their window, or hurry out the front door to check the weather. Had there been a light frost? It would occur up here before it would in town. Did the wind change? What was the speed and direction? If Nature decided to change her clothes overnight, the two of them could alter their plan to suit. Both people were flexible and both were true hunters. They worked with Nature as their partner. People who slaved in air-conditioned offices, drove home in cars with air-conditioning or heated seats, had mostly forgotten that humans don’t control Nature. If she shifts, you shift with her.
Today’s plan was to cast eastward, over the rolling hayfields, past the huge old chestnut. If scent held on the pastures it ought to be a hell of a day. If not, they’d comb through the woods, good trails throughout, and surely hit a line.
They’d go east to the one-room schoolhouse at the edge of Cindy’s property. By then, people and horses would be relaxed. Walter would appear then disappear in the swale before the schoolhouse. Then they would turn northward, making a semicircle until reaching the waterwheel at the twin ponds, one above the other. Mist ought to be thickest there. Melissa and Brandon would be the wraiths of the ponds.
The cast they’d devised kept the wind glancing at them at about a ninety-degree angle up to the schoolhouse. Turning there, hounds would be heading full into the breeze.
“Think they’ll hit?” Raleigh deferred to Rooster, who as a harrier possessed more knowledge of hunting.
“Shouldn’t take long. This place is crawling with foxes.” Rooster lifted his head. “Crawling.”
Inky, sitting in the hayloft, the top door open to keep the hay fresh, looked down. “Didn’t crawl. I climbed.”
“Inky, what are you doing here?” Raleigh liked the small black vixen.
“Well, it’s not like I live that far away. Curiosity got the better of me.”
“Who will give them the first run?” Raleigh asked.
“Yancy. If he poops out, Grace is fishing down by the waterwheel ponds.”
The waterwheel ponds, built by Cindy for practicality and beauty, had a small waterwheel that kept the water moving between the two levels of the ponds. Grace, Charlie’s sister, would fish there for hours.
Cindy would watch through her binoculars. Grace’s Christmas present was a juicy salmon placed outside her den.
“Rooster, come on.” Raleigh loped toward the sound of the horn. “See you later, Inky.”
The two house dogs hurried past the stable, past the freshly painted outbuildings, down the fenced paddocks, and out into the larger pasture. They need not have hurried, for the hounds were drawing northward in a thin line of trees lining the creek, twenty yards at the widest point.
A heavy gray cloud cover began to creep over the Blue Ridge Mountains. This would help hold scent down— and the temperature.
Uncle Yancy heard them coming. He waited by the fence line at the chestnut tree pasture. He’d give them another five minutes, then he’d walk across the pasture, mark the chestnut tree, trot to the in and out jumps on the road, go over them, and then run all the way to the old schoolhouse. He’d dive into the den under the schoolhouse. That ought to get everyone’s blood up.
Back in the covert, Ruthie wrinkled her nose. “What’s this?” Tears filled her eyes.
Delia touched her nose to the spot. “Skunk. Don’t go there, dear. ”
Her brother took a whiff and his eyes watered, too.
“Mmm.” Cora inhaled the musky fox odor of Yancy.
Dasher ran past his brother, irritating him, put his nose down, then bellowed, “Dog fox! Yippee.”
“Just wants to show off for the Saturday crowd,” grumbled the king of show-offs, Dragon.
“You poor baby.” Asa bumped him as he ran by, which only irritated Dragon more.
Seeing the handsome young hound snarl, Betty, on the left bank of the narrow creek, said quietly, “Dragon.”
“I know. I know.” He put his nose down and hollered in his pleasing voice, “Good. Good. Good.”
Shaker blew three sharp “rat-ta-tats,” which brought together the other hounds that had been fanning away from that spot. They all ran in, put their noses to the ground, then opened, honoring Dasher and Cora.
Dasher, now in the front, was quite proud. He usually deferred to his brother, a bully, but today the glory was his, and Cora let him have it. Even if she picked the line first, it was okay that he opened, it would build his confidence.
Shaker now blew “Gone Away,” one of the happiest series of notes a human can blow on a horn. Each longish one-note blast is topped by doubled or tripled notes. Usually three such bars suffice, but in his excitement, a huntsman who is a true windbag can go on and on and on. You’d think they’d pass out from light-headedness.
The members of the field squared their shoulders. The Hilltoppers, right behind them, also put their heels down and lifted their chins.
Sister waited until the last hound, Tinsel, cleared the covert. Having somehow gotten turned around in the excitement, Tinsel finally went right and Sister then squeezed Lafayette. Off they flew.
Lafayette, her usual Saturday horse, earned that honor by virtue of his brains, his beauty, and his smooth gait. Aztec and Rickyroo were still young and learning their trade. Keepsake, at eight, was a wonderful horse who did whatever Sister asked of him. She took Keepsake to other hunts because he would ride in the field without fussing. Lafayette had to be first. He believed deep in his heart that everyone was there to see him.
Over the cut hay pasture, over the coop in the fence line, over the still uncut hayfield with the chestnut tree, over the in and out with the usual rubs and tumps and oomphs. Over the next field and over its jump and down into the thin, parked out woods, the underbrush cleared away, with another trickly creek. Splashing through the creek, cantering alongside the fence, then over the sliprail jump, a little airy, and down a steep incline to another jump at the bottom. This one usually scared the bejesus out of people since you approached at a slight drop and you landed on a bigger drop. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the only way. Down and over Sister and Lafayette went. Oh, how Lafayette loved drop jumps, because they let him stay airborne longer. And on to another hayfield cut so trim, it looked like a front lawn. The three-board fence around it had a freshly painted black coop.
Sister could see Jennifer way at the other side of this field on her right. There was a coop there, and the girl took it in good form as she moved along with hounds but far out of their way. Jennifer was having the time of her life.
Shaker, in his element, screamed encouragement to the hounds, his horn tucked between the first and second button of his brown tweed jacket, his forest green tie a little bunched up behind the horn.
After Sister and Lafayette cleared the coop, she turned to glance behind. Mary Robertson was right behind her. She thought to herself how good her field was. They put the visitors before themselves, and no one had to be told to do it.
As she approached the swale, frothing with mist, she slowed to trot along the edge before heading down into it.