The moving water crystallized at pond’s edge here and there, but until frosts stayed hard and deep for many days the ponds wouldn’t freeze.
Grace, the beautiful resident red fox, returned before sunrise to her den behind the stable. Given the wealth of treats, especially the hard candies that Cindy put out for her, Grace had lost her motivation to hunt afar. Occasionally she provided a bracing run. Today wasn’t the day.
Grace glanced up and back. A blanket of thick clouds massed on the mountaintops. In front of her, the east, the sky was crystal clear. Very interesting. Very tricky.
Hounds picked up Grace’s scent at the waterwheel. The beautiful red liked fishing, a hobby she’d taught to Inky. The two girlfriends would sit at pond’s edge for hours watching the goldfish, big suckers. Every now and then, Grace would grab one or Inky would. The squirming fish sometimes gained its life by flopping right out of their paws and back into the pond. Occasionally they were successful and enjoyed sushi.
Today, a tall male heron, motionless, stood on the far side of the upper pond. With a jaundiced eye he watched the hounds. He wasn’t going to budge unless someone approached him. He was here first. Furthermore, he was hungry. He tilted his head, and an orange flash caught his eye. Fast as lightning he uncoiled his snakey neck and plunged his long, narrow, terrifying beak through the thin ice at pond’s edge into the water, pulling out an extremely healthy fish.
“Wow.” Diddy’s soft brown eyes widened.
“He’s an old crank,” Ardent jibbed.
“Sure can fish, though,” Asa whispered, since Shaker was within earshot.
Grace’s scent lingered enough for hounds to feather, the rhythm of their tails seemingly connected to the intensity of the scent.
Moving upward away from the ponds, hounds reached a higher meadow, where for fifteen minutes the sun warmed the remains of the snow, bare patches of slicked-down pasture also visible.
About a half mile away rested an old schoolhouse by the farm road. Aunt Netty had once lived there until Uncle Yancy filled the den up. Their former addresses littered three fixtures.
Cindy hadn’t noticed, since she hadn’t been riding her property in the cold, but a huge, leggy, red dog fox, Iggy, had recently taken up residence. The lure was not only the abundant supply of mice, moles, rabbits, and grain tidbits but Grace. He meant to have her. At this point, she was coy. Another week, and she might be in season. He was patient. She wouldn’t be so coy then. As it was, she maintained warm conversations with him.
Hounds walked up the pasture and jumped over the fence line, trotting down into the woods where an old springhouse still stood.
Most of the old farms kept their springhouses because they remained useful.
Human reasoning would predict that a fox moving down into the woods, coursing through a narrow creek, and going through the springhouse would produce no scent because the springhouse water would be that much colder, which it was.
However, foxhunting rarely follows the book. Expect the unexpected. Perhaps this is why foxhunting prepares people for life.
Dana, second year, gaining confidence, flanked the pack. She lifted her head, and a tantalizing odor wafted into her nostrils. She moved in that direction, going away from the main body of the pack. As Sybil was on the other side of the creek, deep covert between her and Dana, the whipper-in didn’t notice.
“I have something,” she spoke once but clearly.
“I’ll check,” Cora told the others as Dasher pushed up to take the place of strike hound. “She might be right.”
“Gets too far from the rest of us,” Asa noted.
“Shaker will think she’s a skirter.” Ardent seconded Asa’s concern, for both dog hounds thought Dana showed promise.
Skirters don’t stay in good packs for long.
Cora reached Dana and put her own educated nose to the ground. “Bobcat.”
“Can we chase him?” Dana wanted to be right.
“Sure can. Bobcat and mountain lions count. But here’s the thing, Dana. If we pick up good fox scent, we have to leave off and go to the fox.”
“Over here,” Cora called, and the others honored her.
The pack roared alongside the creek.
Sybil couldn’t keep up through the underbrush. Wisely, she pulled farther west to a cleared path so she could run parallel. Familiar with the country, she knew the places where she could cut back to get closer to hounds.
Sister at first thought hounds were on a gray running in tight circles. She, too, couldn’t follow closely, given the rough terrain.
Hounds sounded fabulous, the echo of voices ricocheting from the steep terrain.
Tootie, Val, Felicity, and Pamela rode at the back of first flight. Out of the corner of her eye, Val perceived movement. She turned her head just as the bobcat shot out from under the thick mountain laurel.
“Oh, m’God,” she gasped.
Tootie followed Val’s eyes, and she, too, caught sight of that unique bobtail, a forty-pound cat, booking along. He then slid into more heavy cover on the other side of the trail. Had the hilltoppers been closer, they would have viewed him.
“Say something,” Pamela ordered. She’d caught a brief sight of the bobcat.
“I don’t know what to say,” Tootie replied irritably.
“Staff!” Felicity shouted for she saw a flash of red heading for them at a right angle.
“Shit.” Val, in tight quarters, wondered how to get out of the way. “One dollar,” Felicity gleefully announced.
The whole pack thundered behind them.
“Shut up, you two.” Tootie, passionate about hunting, thought they’d all talked too much already.
Val urged Moneybags into the bushes.
Unhappy though he was at the idea of getting scratched up, he did as he was told.
Iota, Parson, and Pamela’s Tango, a stunning bay, battled their way into the brush in the nick of time, for Shaker hurtled toward them.
Tootie had the presence of mind to remove her cap and swivel in the direction the bobcat had taken, since she couldn’t turn Iota any more, given the tight quarters.
Shaker, face scratched by thorns, sat upright as Showboat soared over a cluster of mountain laurel.
Seeing Tootie’s arm extended, cap at the end, he called out, “Gray?”
“Bobcat,” Tootie called back as Shaker disappeared on the other side of the deer path.
Ahead of them they heard Walter, obscured by the covert, but they couldn’t hear exactly what he said, given the sound of the hounds drawing away from them and the rattle of dead brown oak leaves clinging fast to branches. Certain oaks retain most of their leaves until the bud swells in spring, finally pushing them off.
“Are we lost?” Pamela asked.
“No. I know this territory,” Felicity said. She’d hunted it more than Pamela had.
“They must be reversing.” Tootie strained to hear up ahead. “Let’s get out of here.”
“All we have to do is stay to the side, then fall in the back.” Pamela couldn’t cede anything to Tootie, whom she considered a rival.
“There’s no room. We can’t get any farther off the path than we are now,” Felicity observed.
“I’m following the huntsman. The hell with it.” Val shot out of her tight quarters and turned Moneybags to the spot where Shaker had plunged into the brush again.
“Val, don’t,” Tootie admonished her.
Val disappeared.
Pamela, hearing the field approach from one direction, the hilltoppers from the other, groaned, “We’ll be squished.”
“Pamela, jump the mountain laurel, where Shaker jumped into the deer path. Do it. Everyone can get by, then we can jump out and bring up the rear.”
Pamela studied the formidable obstacle less out of fear than to plan her approach. Tango was facing in that direction, so she clucked to the sleek animal, then squeezed with purpose as she slid her hands forward.