Tango, a scopey fellow, meaning he could jump wide as well as high, took three trotting strides and soared over. A small clearing provided enough room for him to move forward before he smacked into a copse of black birch, the trees close together. He stopped in time as Iota cleared it, followed by Parson.
The three girls sat there, silent.
Sister trotted by. Three velvet hunt caps appeared on her right, although she couldn’t see the girls clearly. Saying nothing, she pressed on. Soon the sounds of Bobby Franklin and the hilltoppers getting out of first flight’s way filled the air.
People shouldn’t talk during a hunt except on the way back when hounds are lifted, but in such tight quarters a word here or there did escape lips. The crashing about in the bush amused Iggy the schoolhouse fox, who had watched the drama from under a mass of junipers on a rise in the land, their thick scent masking his.
He stayed upwind. Hounds blasted one hundred yards beneath him, but the bobcat scent, heavy, kept them from even catching a hint of his, for potent as the junipers were, a tendril of fox musk might have reached them.
As Charlotte Norton and Bunny Taliaferro rode past, Bunny craned her neck to see her three charges in there. Pleased at their perfect manners, she smiled broadly, as did Charlotte Norton. At that moment it didn’t register with either woman that they counted only three caps, not four.
Once Jason and Walter had passed, Tootie clapped her leg on Iota. He cleared the mountain laurels again with ease. Felicity and Pamela followed, as Tootie had quickly moved up the deer path to give them room.
Before they could trot on, out popped Iggy. He grinned ear to ear.
“Tally ho,” Pamela called out.
“Won’t do any good.” Iggy sauntered next to them, using their horses as a cover and a foil.
“Oh, my God; oh, my God.” Felicity, overcome by Iggy following them like a dog, could scarcely breathe.
“He’ll duck out when he’s ready,” Tootie predicted.
“Smart for a young human,” Iggy remarked to the horses.
“She has all the instincts to make a great hunter, this kid,” Iota bragged on his human.
“Mine has no game sense at all,” Parson sighed, as he loved Felicity.
“Doesn’t need it,” Tango replied. “Mind like a steel trap. She’ll run a company someday and have more hay than anyone else.”
“Ever notice how some humans can learn and others can’t, whereas we always learn from what’s around us?” Iggy mused.
“Curious.” Iota had noticed this because Tootie absorbed everything, whereas the others, not unintelligent, only picked up what they were looking for in the first place.
“They need systems,” Parson, named for a practitioner of such a system, said.
“I think they’re born that way.” Tango turned his head slightly to avoid a hanging vine. “Damn thing.”
“I don’t. Heredity is stored environment. This fear, this need to believe, overrides their heredity. They don’t listen to their bodies anymore except for sex. They’re making a real mess of it, too.” Parson had strong opinions.
“Well, you must observe natural phenomena without judgment,” Iggy shrewdly noted. “That’s the only way you can flourish.” He stopped for a second. “Coming back. He won’t break into the open. If he gets bored with it, old Flavius will climb a tree. Mind you, he’s ferocious.” With that Iggy disappeared, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll cross his line and get you all out of this ravine.”
Old Flavius, the bobcat, shot in front of Iota, who shied for a second. Tootie, tight leg, stuck like glue. Her heart pounded to be so close to such a beautiful yet fearsome beast.
“Hold hard.”
The other two had caught sight of the big cat, too.
Two minutes later the whole pack crashed in front of Tootie and charged into the brush.
Confusion overtook them as Iggy’s scent crossed Flavius’s line.
Seconds later, Shaker, more scratches on his craggy face, appeared.
Pausing in the deer path, right in front of Tootie, he listened intently. “Two lines.”
She remained silent. He smiled at her and turned his horse toward the north, staying on the deer path. “Girls, follow me.”
Thrilled, they did as they were told. Not four strides down the deer path, Val fought her way through the brambles to fall in behind Pamela.
Pamela turned to see Val’s gorgeous face crisscrossed with scratches like tic-tac-toe. She stifled a giggle and pressed on. Val was displeased to be following Pamela.
Shaker kept close to his hounds as they milled about. Once he thought he knew which was the fox scent, he put his horn to his lips and, doubling the notes, urged them on to the scent.
First to figure it out was Diana. “Dog fox. Don’t know him.”
The hounds swung to her except for two couple of the second-year entry. The bobcat scent—hot, hot, hot—fooled them into thinking they were closing on their quarry.
Shaker couldn’t count all his hounds in the thick covert. He blew again, feeling his shirt stick to his back from sweat despite the cold. Hounds opened again.
Dana froze as Betty Franklin and Outlaw blasted into the bush.
“Hark to ’em.” Her voice, firm and clear, bided no stragglers.
The two couple squirted toward the sound of the horn and the cry of the pack.
As they scooted away, Betty paused one moment and said to her beloved friend, “How in the hell do we get out of this mess?”
“Leave it to me.” Outlaw lowered his head and pushed through tight cedars, brush, and vines. Tarzan would have felt at home here except for the cold.
Steady as a rock, the quarter horse moved forward until he broke through to the creek again.
He leaped down into the creek; it was a two-foot drop, but the footing wasn’t rocky in the creek.
Betty, trusting him, let him pick his exit spot. Little blue cedar berries, round, had slipped behind her coat collar. They drove her nuts, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. A few had found their way into her boots, too.
“We can fly from here.” Outlaw blew air out his nostrils, waiting for her command.
“I love you.” Betty patted him on the neck, then galloped forward, for they had real estate to cover.
Flavius, free of the hounds, walked to the springhouse, where he’d stashed some kill. He paid no attention to Sybil on Bombardier. The horse shied as Flavius bared his fangs for effect. Sybil flew off. Bombardier stood still, and she remounted, amazed that the bobcat sat and watched her. Sybil felt like prey.
Iggy led everyone on a merry chase. Needing the exercise, he didn’t head straight for the schoolhouse. He boogied to the twin ponds. The heron, livid that Iggy circled both ponds, lifted wide his huge wings.
“Scares me to death,” Iggy sassed him.
Athena and Bitsy reposed on the topmost limb of a towering sycamore denuded of leaves.
“It’s been quite a show,” Athena chortled.
And it wasn’t over yet, for hounds, finally out of that heavy covert, sped over the patchy ground, tiny bits of snow and mud shooting off behind them. Cora, first, flat out, circled the upper pond, leaped down to the lower, and circled that.
Iggy, a secure four minutes ahead—given his speed, he was in the prime of life—veered into the manicured woods, called “parked out” in this part of the world. Making no attempt to foil his scent, he then raced in a large semicircle. As he reached the woods’ edge, he kept to it, knowing it would be full of scent from edge feeders like rabbits.