“Weevil, why don’t we all walk up to the schoolhouse tomorrow and cast there? Sort of a reverse cast.”
“Yes, Madam.” He smiled.
“You are so polite.” She smiled back.
As they left the barn to go home, Weevil opened his car door, found the small package, nicely wrapped, on the driver’s seat, put it in his pocket. Carter had left it for him. Weevil would decide when to give it to Tootie.
They worked well together, liked each other. He knew better than to court her in the conventional sense, but this was a present he had to give her. Maybe after the last hunt of the season.
Sister walked up to the house. Gray’s Land Cruiser sat outside. She was glad he was back from yet another short business trip.
She opened the door, heard the dogs barking as she hung up her coat.
“Hey, honey, I’m home,” she called out.
He called back, “I’m in the library, watching all hell break loose.”
She hurried in, dropped down next to him. “It’s kind of like watching the pot call the kettle dirty, isn’t it?”
“Well, honey, just in case, we’d better make some preparations.”
“Hunt tomorrow.”
“I know, but afterward I’ll make a run to Harris Teeter. If people get scared they will buy everything.”
“We have enough.”
“For how long? I mean it. I think people will go crazy.”
“Scare tactics?”
He flipped to CNN then to Fox then to CBS. “Thought I’d check the different flavors. One thing no one can refute is that China has been overwhelmed, Italy’s starting to slide, and Angela Merkel is taking no prisoners. It’s here that it’s murky.”
She silently watched. “What do you think?”
“I think after hunting tomorrow we should talk to Walter. Rich people will be buying freezers and buying all the meat in the stores. I mean, if some agreement doesn’t soon emerge between our federal government and the medical professionals. In a case like this, best to trust your governor.”
“Fortunately, our governor is a physician.”
“Yes, he is.” Gray put his arm around her. “At this point I’m more wary of other people than the virus.”
“Well, let’s take it a day at a time.”
CHAPTER 30
March 10, 2020 Tuesday
Fog as thin as a veil shrouded the old schoolhouse at Foxglove Farm.
A light mist swirled, barely visible. Hounds waited for Weevil’s instructions and the field waited by the clapboard schoolhouse, still inviting and still sturdy although abandoned in the 1960s when bussing became the method, children hauled to large schools, consolidated districts that created rectangular, big, mostly ugly new schoolhouses.
In the distance below, Sister beheld the huge cow and her son, Clytemnestra and Orestes, in a paddock. The Jefferson Hunt always parked by the stables and the cow barn, to Clytemnestra’s irritation. Best to be distant from the enormous crab.
This Tuesday the field swelled to thirty-some people. Given the continuing bad news about the coronavirus, many members felt this would be the last hunt despite the season’s normal end in mid-March.
Rickyroo, Sister’s bay Thoroughbred, waited as patiently as the hounds. He did wonder why every nose had to be accounted for before they took off.
“All right, then, lieu in.” Weevil cast downhill from the schoolhouse.
The gray vixen Georgia lived in the schoolhouse in splendor. She rarely gave hounds a run but the hope was another fox may have visited her, sort of like visiting your rich aunt. Georgia had everything, plus Cindy Chandler would open the door, put in a large bowl of dog food sprinkled with treats. If weather turned ugly Georgia need not trouble herself. Sister fussed at Cindy because the fox didn’t give them runs, staying right where life was easy. Cindy would laugh, which settled it, as no one could argue with such an inviting laugh.
So down the terrace they would ride once off the flat site, down to the two ponds at lower levels before them. The small waterwheel sending water from the upper pond to the lower via a buried pipe, end sticking out at the lower pond.
Hounds veered toward the woods to the right of this. The moisture intensified scent.
“Someone.” Diana kept walking.
Her littermate, the egotistical Dragon, walked beside her. “Red.”
“Yes. We’ll see.” She continued walking but not speaking.
Dragon irritated many of the other hounds but none so much as his own littermates. Diana seemed to be the only one who could work with him, so his hunting days were limited to hunting with her. He was fast, strong, and determined, which was the good part. He thought nothing of pushing another hound off the line, going first, taking credit. The younger hounds would now push back, so Weevil had to keep an eye on him.
Ardent walked fast then trotted. “Two of them.”
The scent, having warmed, revealed a double line. The humans had no idea but the hounds, noses down, now trotted. Finally all opened.
Cindy, over the years, opened many paths in her wooded areas helped by the hunt club. Those late spring and summer days brought everyone out with limb loppers, chain saws, even a bushhog.
Thanks to a wide path, hounds and horses could run without negotiating debris.
Rickyroo, ears forward, listened intently. Sister, leg firm, relaxed on the fellow, for he was a most sensible horse. His smooth gaits made him a joy to ride.
“Split!” Dragon bellowed before Diana could say the same.
While he cut to the left, she did not. She slowed, nose down, going from one line to the other to determine which was the hottest. She turned to the right while Dragon could be heard, booming deep voice, on the left.
Weevil, not a moment’s hesitation, followed Diana.
Tootie, on the left, per usual, now had the thankless job of pushing Dragon back to the pack. Weevil might thank her but Dragon would make her work for it. He was determined to be right. To hell with the pack, which is a major sin for a foxhound.
“Dragon, leave it.” Tootie called his name.
“Screw you,” he answered.
As he did not respond to his name, Tootie unleashed her crop, the kangaroo woven crop ending in a tightly woven plait of hay twine. The sound cracked like a rifle shot. His head came up and she rode right for him.
Now beside him, for Iota could easily keep up with Dragon, fast though he was, Tootie turned her right thigh in, pivoting as she leaned over on her left side, and this time aimed her cracker right for Dragon’s rear end. Easier said than done, but Tootie, practicing over the years, nailed him.
“Oww!” he yelled.
“Go to him.”
Dragon did turn right and hurried to catch up. Hardheaded, he couldn’t be taken out with youngsters, as he might lead them astray. He would have today. Dragon was lucky Sister kept him, to use him on days when the veterans were out with only Diana from his litter. His nose and drive were worth it but she was the only person who thought so.
The pack, full cry, raced through the woods, emerging on the far eastern side, a plowed cornfield forcing riders to go along the side. No one should run through plow anyway. Bad enough to risk a crop even if the shoots had not come up, it was also a good way to bow a tendon if the going was deep, which it usually was.
Hounds could go over the plow. Weevil skirted the large pasture. A simple tiger trap in the fence line gave him a way out because hounds were now racing across an old meadow.
Hounds reached the far side of that meadow, once fenced, pieces of the fence standing, the rest fallen down. Scent disappeared.