Shaker dismounted, blew “Gone to ground,” and quickly remounted.
He wanted to pull the pack out of there because all manner of larger predators found the rocks with fissures and small caves very attractive.
Tootie, Val, and Felicity, burning hot, welcomed the ice bits on their cheeks. Their core body heat hadn’t begun to cool.
Uncle Yancy posed in the pin oak on a lower branch, which was nevertheless too high for hounds to yank him down by his lovely brush, quite in contrast to Aunt Netty’s pathetic little tail.
“Close call,” he cheerfully called down as the pack came near.
“What are you doing all the way over here?” Asa wondered.
“Netty brought me a beautiful pencil, so I came to see if there’s more. Dead human, pretty fresh in a shallow grave. That’s why the coyote was digging here. Well, ‘I was here first,’ I says to him, and he says, ‘Bug off, Pipsqueak.’ If you all hadn’t come along when you did, I might have got the worst of that fight.”
Dragon, bleeding all over the snow, limped along.
Shaker stopped before reaching the graveyard and called back to Sister. “We’d better put him in Sam’s woodshed. I’ll come back for him. Don’t want him to walk all the way back to the trailers.”
“Shaker, maybe there’s a better way.” She motioned to Betty, who rode in closer. “Betty, call Sam on your cell phone. See if he’ll leave for a minute and load up Dragon in his truck.”
“He can’t lift him.” Betty reached inside her coat for her phone.
“Right.” Sister nodded, for she’d momentarily forgotten Sam’s wound. “Call Gray. Maybe he can slip away. If not, we’ll have to ride back, then drive back. I hate to leave him for long.”
“Okay.” Betty punched in Gray’s number as Sister gave it to her.
As Betty filled in Gray, the field watched Uncle Yancy, about one hundred yards away, talk to the hounds who sat underneath the tree.
“This place is full of dead humans. Why would the coyote dig one up?” Diddy asked.
Ardent sometimes forgot how young the last “D” litter was. “They bury six feet down so we can’t smell the body. This grave has to be less than that. Peculiar. Humans are fastidious about planting their dead.”
“Go on over there. Even with the snow and sleet, you’ll get a whiff,” Uncle Yancy suggested.
“No. You’ll back down and run off,” Dasher said.
“Ha! What do you take me for?” Uncle Yancy replied.
Diddy and Ardent walked over as Shaker rode up, followed by Sister.
“He’s right. I can get a whiff.” Diddy closed her eyes for a moment.
“Coyote helped. He clawed out six inches or more. Ground’s not as cold here; the graveyard is sheltered from the wind. It’s a lovely spot.”
Shaker dismounted and walked to the pin oak. “Uncle Yancy, you should know better than to pick a fight with a coyote.”
“I was here first.” Uncle Yancy refused to recognize Shaker’s point.
Betty raised her voice so Sister could hear, for she had walked to the other side of the graveyard just in case hounds took a notion. “He’ll be here in twenty minutes, tops.”
“Thank heavens,” Sister sighed. The sleet was now mixed in with more ice bits.
Shaker reached Diddy and Ardent. The pack followed. He stared at the small hole in the ground. He couldn’t smell what they smelled, but he could see where the snow had been pulled away, where the ground was freshly disturbed. He scuffed that area with the toe of his boot. “Sister, something’s in here.”
The weather was worsening steadily. Sister asked Tedi to take the field. She handed Aztec’s reins to Tootie to lead back.
“Shaker, I’ll stay with Dragon. Let’s put him in the woodshed out of the weather. You load up and get on home before the roads really get ugly. Gray can drive Dragon and me to Marty Shulman at the vet clinic. We’ll get Dragon stitched up and fill him with antibiotics.”
Ice rattled against the worn tombstones like clear BBs.
“All right.” He knew her plan was wise.
“Betty, call Ben Sidell. Tell him he needs to come out here.”
“I could stay with you. Val can lead Outlaw back.”
“You need to be with the hounds. You and Sybil. Go on, now.”
Jason rode up and touched his cap with his crop. “Ma’am, I would be privileged to stay. If you find some thread and a needle, I can stitch him up.”
“Thank you, Jason, but really I’ll be fine, and Gray’s on his way. Save your skills for humans,” she replied.
“All right, then.” He turned to fall in alongside Walter, who had mounted up after checking Dragon.
Although they were human doctors, if Dragon needed emergency surgery or stitching, Walter or Jason could do it. In a pinch, a vet could put together a human, too.
As the field rode away, Sister noticed how well turned out they were. Hunched against the weather, all were correct in their attire, their tack. They had such pride in being part of the Jefferson Hunt, and she had such pride in them.
She put her hand on Dragon’s head. “That’s a deep ugly wound, but it’s a long way from your heart. Thank God for Walter; he stanched some of the bleeding. Come on, big fella.”
“It hurts, but I can do it. If you’d put your nose over that hole, you’d smell the carcass.” He then remembered the odor wouldn’t register with her.
“Wish you’d killed that damn coyote. Marauders, every last one of them.”
“Wish I’d killed him, too.” Dragon, head down in the biting weather, agreed.
Once inside the woodshed, Sister sat on a low line of stacked hardwood logs. Dragon rested by her feet. Leaning over, she rubbed his ears, a comfort to a dog. She stroked under his neck, praising him for closing so quickly on his quarry.
“He miscalculated.” Dragon, despite his pain, touted his skill. “I’m fast. Really fast.”
Both animals, grateful for the shelter, listened to the rattle of ice on the rooftop, to the wind picking up.
Sister checked her pocket watch. The hounds and field should have crossed into After All by now. If Tedi picked up a trot where the footing was good, they’d be at the trailers in another fifteen minutes. She reminded herself to give Tootie a small present for taking Aztec back. Leading a horse through rough territory, which some of this was, took talent on the part of the human, cooperation on the part of the horse.
Dragon shivered.
“Getting to you, buddy.” Sister took off her coat, draping it on the hound. She sat down in the dirt beside him to hold the coat closer on him. “You’ll make it, Dragon; you’ll make it.”
“I love you.” He half closed his eyes.
Both heard the welcome note of the eight-cylinder Land Cruiser engine.
Sister stepped outside, waving to Gray, who drove off the driveway to reach her.
“Janie, you’ll catch your death of cold.”
“No, I won’t. Honey, he’ll bleed on the backseat.”
“Put it down. Garvey gave me a blanket he kept in his office for when he sleeps over. I’ll buy him a new one.” He smiled as he strode into the woodpile, knelt down, and gently lifted the seventy-pound hound into the Land Cruiser.