“Get your fox,” he called in his deep baritone, a sonorous voice.
Pansy moved with more determination, her tail flipping. Trident, next to her, mirrored her behavior. Within a minute all the hounds pressed but didn’t open. A huntsman’s hopes are raised with this behavior, so, too, for the riders who know hunting. Hounds have something, but what? Is it a fading line that grows stronger? Is it fox scent or something else? Foxhounds can and do hunt coyote, bobcat. Deer, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and groundhogs should be ignored. A bear presents a judgment call. While legitimate game and game that can move faster than a city person, one would think that bear can climb a tree, fine but not so fine; bear can also stop, wait for hounds, and then swing. The creature is so powerful it can snap a neck with one blow, break a human’s rib cage with one blow. Best to respect bears.
When hounds do not speak but continue with determination, the huntsman must follow. No one truly knows what hounds are tracking until the hound opens. Then the line is heating up, the game is legitimate. Off you go.
Sister watched a few “J” youngsters out today doing great, working with the pack. She allowed time for mistakes in the first season. Same as first-graders missing a letter in the alphabet, you calmly wait. They’ll get it right.
“A visiting fox. Let’s go.” Cora pushed Pansy and Trident on, as they were still a bit hesitant.
Trotting forward, the hounds moved as one. Just where this was leading was anybody’s guess; but then, it’s always anybody’s guess.
Nothing enticing, as all rode along the creekbed. Reaching the covered bridge, hounds stopped then dropped down to Broad Creek.
“Maybe a half hour,” Diana stated as a first snowflake lazed down.
All, noses down, worked to decide in which direction the fox, Comet, who they knew, was traveling, for he had doubled back.
Finally, Trident called out, “Heading home.”
This meant the hounds’ home as well as Comet’s, who had a den under the dependency in which Tootie lived.
Hounds opened, now on the west side of Broad Creek. Weevil trotted through the covered bridge, dropping down to the right onto the pasture. He squeezed Midshipman, a young Thoroughbred he was training for Sister, a gorgeous fellow with a sensible mind and that great Thoroughbred heart, and they surged.
Sister followed through the bridge, waited a moment for Weevil to decide whether to follow closely behind his hounds or to follow the farm path through this pasture, which then turned into a cleared path in woods abutting Roughneck Farm, Sister’s property. At that point a stiff hog’s back jump allowed one to get over handily into her wildflower meadow, all dormant now but decent footing.
If he followed hounds closely he’d wind up in the woods, fighting his way through. Hounds knew they were on Comet but Weevil did not. As three foxes lived at Roughneck Farm in relative splendor, there were three destinations. The young huntsman felt certain it had to be a Roughneck fox but he wouldn’t know which one until hounds hit the wildflower meadow. One fox lived in the apple orchard behind the kennels, Inky. Comet luxuriated under Tootie’s small house. Georgia would go over Hangman’s Ridge to the schoolhouse at Foxglove Farm if she had time. Hangman’s Ridge creeped out everyone, even the foxes. But if weather impeded progress or high wind came out of nowhere, and it seemed to do that around Hangman’s Ridge, Georgia would race to the back porch at the main house, under which there was a den for just such purposes. The problem with that was it set off the hounds in the kennels, the two house dogs carried on, and the cat sat in the window discussing canine shortcomings at a high decibel level.
One time, a friend of Georgia’s during cubbing miscalculated the territory and hounds’ speed, having been asleep under one of the apple trees when hounds came out of the kennels. Knowing the den, he made straight for it, but not before running through the garden shed by that porch. Tools fell off the walls, a wheelbarrow was knocked over, and a few highly motivated hounds smashed right through the paned-glass windows.
Much as a huntsman tries to keep his or her mind on hounds, such memories or stories of same do intrude. No one wants hounds with cut pads, or worse, a wrecked building that belongs to your boss or any landowner.
Midshipman and Weevil flew as the tiny snowflakes grew fatter. As the cold bit his face he realized this storm was not predicted on The Weather Channel but it was here and growing stronger.
Such thoughts filtered through Sister’s mind as well. The open pasture lent itself to a hard gallop, which came to a severe slowdown once into the woods. She could make out Betty’s black coat as Betty was on a deer path winding due north. Tootie, on her left, raced in the open, heading for a jump at the far end of the wildflower meadow. If hounds and fox turned left she would be there. If they turned right she could make up the ground.
Comet, comfortably ahead, wasn’t taking chances. He picked up speed, forgoing evasive measures. Just get home.
Giorgio, the fastest hound along with Dragon, who was in the kennel, ran perhaps two hundred yards behind the sleek, healthy gray, full winter coat attesting to his well-being.
A few yards behind Giorgio ran Bachelor, a first-year entry. He had the engine, so no reason to hunt behind an older and wiser hound. At least that’s what he thought.
The hogs’ back loomed ahead. No problem for hounds, even though the footing was beginning to get slippery, not evil but slippery. The snow fell heavily but one could still see.
All the hounds leapt over the hogs’ back. Given the pace, no hound wanted to wriggle under the three-board fence. Jump and go. Weevil did just that as Betty, ahead of him on the right, negotiated a fallen tree, slowing her down, but she then made it over a simple thin three-rail fence. Outlaw, her hunter of many years, did not favor an airy fence, but she squeezed, clucked, and moved her hands up his neck. He figured this wasn’t the time to have a moment, anyway; hounds were in full cry and he was a true hunt horse.
Comet streaked across the wildflower field, easily viewed by hounds, staff, and the field, his tail straight out behind him. Reaching the other side of the big field, he easily scrunched under the lowest board on the fence, blasted to the back of the clapboard cottage, a small covered porch leading to the back door, and shot under the latticework under the porch floor first, ducking into the big den under there.
“What are you doing?” Target, the red who lived there as well as Comet, asked, then he heard the hounds really close. “You have no sense.”
“How was I to know they’d hunt on a snow day? The pickings were great at After All. And those garbage cans are a cinch to open.”
Target cocked his head. “Humans can’t tell the weather. They only know what’s happening when it’s on them. And as for the treats over there, you’ll lose your hunting skills. You can’t live off human largess without getting lazy.”
This conversation was interrupted by Giorgio, nose under the base of the porch, white-painted lattice hiding the open space under the outside porch.
“Almost! I almost had you.”
All the hounds, now there, hollered at once.
Target growled. “Shut up. I can’t hear myself think.”
The field, standing only ten yards away, heard the furious barking from the fox.
“Drama.” Sister laughed.
“Okay, let’s kennel up.” Weevil walked to the kennels, where Betty and Tootie quickly dismounted to open the big draw pen doors. They’d have to go back to pick up the hound trailer, but no use going all the way back when hounds had run to the kennels.