“Good hounds,” Sybil called after them.
“Good, yes, but I picked the fox, the best fox for the day. Why, we could have run all the way to pattypan!” Cora grumbled to herself as she loped across the field to rejoin the center splinter of the pack. “What is Uncle Yancy doing over here anyway? He’s all over the place.”
“Ha!” Uncle Yancy stopped right in the middle of the wildflower field when the pack turned.
Sybil, trotting behind the hounds, turned to face him. “You’re one lucky devil.”
“Not with my wife, I’m not.” He grinned raffishly. “Had to get away from Netty. Here I am.”
Sybil laughed when he barked at her. That flooding sensation of speaking with another species filled her with awe. In a sense, the two creatures understood each other.
Bombardier understood every word and whinnied, “Long hike to escape your wife.”
“Hells bells, I gave her pattypan. I came back to my old den.”
Uncle Yancy’s old den, originally shared with Aunt Netty, was on the west side of Roughneck Farm, about a half mile from the apple orchard where Georgia, Inky’s daughter, now lived.
That was the last den where he and Aunt Netty had cohabited.
“Maybe you should become a bachelor,” Bombardier grinned, his big teeth quite a contrast to Uncle Yancy’s sharp fangs.
“You’re a gelding; what do you know?” Uncle Yancy taunted the bay.
“I have imagination.” Bombardier humped his back, kicking out playfully.
Sybil, enraptured by Uncle Yancy, had slowed to a walk. The buck brought her to her senses. She squeezed Bombardier’s flanks, and the two moved along faster.
Cora, speed serving her well, had already reached the main body of the pack. The others, not far behind her, joined in.
Cora came alongside of Diddy. “Well done.”
Wild-eyed with excitement, Diddy yelped, “I can do it!”
“You can do it when I retire.” Cora pulled ahead, but she said this with warmth.
One thing, she’d never relinquish her position of strike hound to Dragon. If only the coyote had severed his jugular. She’d think about training Diddy. Somewhere down the line they’d both have to deal with Dragon.
Dasher, pushed back by Betty, now joined the pack, too. Inky had popped into her den just as Betty rode near the northernmost splinter of the pack.
He stuck his head in Inky’s den to prove what he’d done. Betty told him he was really wonderful but he’d better yank his head out of that den and get to Shaker.
Once the two groups had joined the chase after Comet, Shaker blew the long note followed by three short ones. They were all on.
The sixty-seven riders, amazed at their good fortune, contended with the packed snow, the patches of ice, and the splotches of frozen mud churned up during the short thaw earlier in the week.
Faces flushed, they were breathing hard, and sweat soaked their backs even though the temperature was barely nudging forty degrees. Comet raced straight down the farm road in full view. He had a head start and trusted his fleet paws as well as his cunning.
His special treat for them today was to run for the trailers. He ran in the back door of one big rig and out the tack room door, swinging open. Two minutes later the pack did the same, except that they jammed in the tack room door, and that slowed them down.
He ran into Joe Kasputys’ rig, heard Caesar, the German shepherd, bark from the truck cab, and quickly bolted out of that trailer. When the hounds hurtled into the trailer it rocked back and forth. This plucked Caesar’s last nerve.
Next Comet ran around the kennels, which sent every hound not hunting that day into a frenzy. The cacophony was deafening and confusing because it took some time for Shaker to recognize where the pack was once the hounds were on the other side of the kennel.
He managed to pick his way around it and realized the pack was blowing through the orchard. A few unpicked apples rested under the snow. One couldn’t race through there. The horses carefully walked through, emerging back out on the farm road.
However, a few hounds stopped by Georgia’s den. This also cost time. Georgia, relaxing, became irritated when two hounds dug at her main entrance.
Betty had to push them on.
Back together again, the pack now leaped over some old hedges, neatly trimmed. They crisscrossed the farm road three times, jumping those same hedges, as did the field.
Comet, in his glory, thought to run through the wildflower field but decided against it in case there were drifts. Much as he wanted to show himself to the humans and rub his superiority in their faces, he prudently blasted down the farm road, just nipped through the corner of the apple orchard again, then snaked through the trailers, causing pandemonium once more as hounds rattled through shining aluminum trailers, older steel ones, and one big old horse van, rarely seen among foxhunters these days.
After this display of agility, he made a beeline for Sister’s house.
Golly, not a cold-weather girl, had been out for her constitutional. The racket intrigued her, so she sat on the back stoop to watch the show. Her cat door, not far, reassured her she could escape if need be.
Comet, seeing the snotty cat, ran straight for her. “I’m going to get you.”
“Oh, balls, Comet.” Golly turned and ducked into her door, the flap closing as the magnetic strips touched each other.
Comet easily fit through the same door.
Facing Golly in the mud room, he heard Raleigh and Rooster come to life on the other side of the kitchen door.
Golly, frozen in astonishment, puffed up to twice her size. She danced sideways.
“You look like a broody hen,” Comet laughed.
“I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll pop through that second cat door there and tell those idiot dogs how smart I am. And how generous. I could bite you in two.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Golly hissed a spectacular shower of droplets.
He stepped toward her.
She backed right up to the door as Raleigh tried to poke his head through the cat door.
“Raleigh, you dolt. I need to get through.”
Raleigh withdrew his head. Golly turned and shot through the door, then hit Raleigh on the nose as hard as she could.
He screamed as bright red blood drops appeared on his moist black nose. “Harpy!”
“You were in my way. Comet out there could have bitten me, although I would have hit him, too.”
Comet, flamboyant stinker, stuck his head through the door. “Domesticated twits.”
Rooster lunged for him, but Comet just stepped back.
“You’re lucky I’m on the other side of this door. I’d tear you limb from limb,” the harrier threatened.
“Dream on, fatty.” Comet then sat back down to groom his tail while the entire pack hit the door like a tricolor avalanche. Couldn’t get in, of course. This pleased the gray fox immensely. Sister wouldn’t open the door. He was as safe as if he’d been in his own den, a half mile away.
Shaker, flummoxed, a rare occurrence, lifted both feet out of the stirrups, vaulting off HoJo, who, curious, stepped up after Shaker to get closer.
Shaker looked to Sister.
“Blow ‘gone to ground.’” She laughed.
He lifted the horn to his lips, the happy notes filling the air along with the cries of the pack, Raleigh and Rooster’s howls, and the voices of the entire kennel.
Golly hollered at the top of her considerable lungs, “I denned the fox!”