Both master and huntsman loathed noisy, showoff staff.
The “A” young entry looked ahead as the pack lengthened their stride.
Shaker smiled down at the gorgeous tricolored hounds and quietly said, “Hike to ’em, young ’uns.”
Picking up their pace, ploughing through the snow, within seconds they filled in the pack. As yet no hound opened, spoke to the line, but all those gifted noses kept down.
Cora, the richness of years and high intelligence to her credit, wanted to make certain the line was growing stronger and fresher before she sang out. She didn’t much like poking around old lines of scent when fresh ones could be found with diligent effort. Being head bitch as well as the strike hound, she occasionally needed to chastise younger hounds who, in their excitement and desire to hunt, opened too early. Sometimes they would babble on the wrong quarry. That would never do.
Dragon, proud, competitive, and desperately wanting to become the strike hound, pushed ahead of Cora and called out, “Come on.”
Cora, livid that the younger dog hound had challenged her authority, bumped him hard, knocking him in the snow. As she passed him she bared her fangs. Even Dragon, arrogant as he was, knew better than to start a fight during hunting and certainly not with Cora.
The pack opened, the young entry lifting their voices. Mostly they knew what they were doing, but sometimes the excitement of it overcame them and they’d “Yip, yip, yip” in a higher pitch than the other hounds.
Target, hearing the hounds, picked up his handsome head and looked around. The wind, light, blew away from him in a swirl. Once out of the shallow bowl he happened to be in at that moment, the wind would revert to a steady breeze from west to east. He realized he hadn’t smelled the hounds because of where he was. The little wind devils didn’t help. Being lighter than the hounds, he could run on snow with a crust on it, but this fresh powder slowed him. Target was not in an enviable situation.
Perched high in a two-hundred-year-old walnut, St. Just, king of the crows, peered down with relish. Perhaps this would be the day when he would watch Target die. He hated this fox with a vengeance, for Target had killed his mate.
Also observing the hunt was Bitsy, the screech owl. Curious and tiny, but big of voice, she was returning to her nest in the rafters of Sister’s barn when she heard the pack. Bitsy, social, liked to visit other barns and other owls. She’d enjoyed a night of feasting on various tidbits at Tedi and Edward Bancroft’s barn with a regular barn owl who lived there. That particular bird also lived for gossip, just like Bitsy.
None of the owls liked St. Just or any of the crows. Crows sometimes mobbed them in daylight. The battle lines were clearly drawn. St. Just and his minions feared Athena, the great horned owl. In fact, any animal with sense kept on the good side of the Queen of the Night. She could hurt you.
She wasn’t in sight, so St. Just, emboldened, began calling for his troops to rouse themselves. Within moments the edge of the nearby woods filled with cackles and calls. Those crows dozing in the walnut tree awakened, their bright eyes focusing on the laboring fox in the snow.
The sky filled with black birds circling the fox.
St. Just dive-bombed the big red, who snapped with his jaws.
Hounds were gaining, and the fox and crows heard Shaker blow one long blast followed by three short ones. Three times this sequence was played, which meant “All on.” All hounds ran on the scent.
To those riding behind, their bodies as warm as the tears on their faces felt cold, the hounds flying together on the blue snows was a sight they would always remember.
Target hoped he’d live to remember.
Bitsy flew wide of the crows to stop and assess the situation from the top of the recently vacated walnut. She flew back, and since she was an owl she could fly slowly, the marvelous construction of her feathers’ baffling silencing her approach.
“They’re a quarter mile behind.”
“Bitsy, help me,” Target pleaded as he ran. “See if the pattypan is open. Used to be an old den there.”
The pattypan, so named for its circular shape, had been a small forge built immediately after the Revolutionary War. After World War I it had fallen into disuse, although burrowing animals found it a wonderful place for a home.
The crows shadowed Target, the braver ones bombing him, slowing his progress. The edge of the woods, now one hundred yards ahead, could be his salvation, but he had to cross open ground—and therein lay the danger.
Cora could now see, dimly, the big red pushing through the snow, his brush straight out. Sister, too, could see him and knew from his brush that he wasn’t fatigued or beaten, but he was in peril. Target’s stride, shorter than the hounds’, was now, though not usually, a problem. He flattened his ears, his heart pumping, and he ran straight as an arrow.
A young male crow swerved right in front of him to slow him, but Target, quick as a cat, lashed out with his front paws and batted the bird down, then crushed its neck in his jaws. He bit into the body, kept the bird in his mouth, and trailed blood for ten yards before dropping the crow.
St. Just waxed apoplectic. “Kill him, Dragon! Kill him, Cora!”
The odor of fresh blood threw off even Cora for a moment. The intoxication of it slowed the pack down just a second or two, but that was enough for the fox to reach the woods.
“The old den is clear; you can get in.” Bitsy noticed the blood on Target’s jaws. “The old deer path is better going. Not as much snow on it.”
The sheltering pines, oaks, hickories, black birches—the whole rich panoply of eastern hardwoods and pines—did keep the snows lighter on the deer path. Target sped along.
As the field rode along the narrow path the thunder of hooves brought down the snow on the boughs and branches. Showers of iridescent spray slid down collars, stuck to eyelashes, and secreted themselves into the tops of boots.
Target spied the thick walls of the redbrick forge ahead. He lunged forward, skidding into an old woodchuck den whose entrance was at the outer wall of the forge. Over the centuries this den had developed into a labyrinthine maze worthy of a tiny minotaur. Safe, he flopped on his side to catch his breath.
Dragon vaulted through a long window four feet off the ground, the glass long ago pulverized. Diddy, Dasher, and Cora followed, Asa last over the windowsill.
“There’s got to be more denholes!”
Cora looked around. The interior was intact. “There are plenty of holes, Dragon, but he’s not going to pop out.”
“We can dig him out,” Diddy, young and excited, squealed.
Shaker blew three long notes, then called, “Come back.”
“Better go,” Asa advised as he also heard the rest of the pack baying, digging at the outside den entrance.
As the five hounds turned to obey their huntsman Cora lifted her head. She trotted over to another window where snow streaked across the floor. A raspberry, congealed lump the size of a tin of chewing tobacco, glistened. She drew close, inhaled deeply. “Human.”
Asa joined her, putting his nose close to the lump. “Indeed it is.”
Calling again, Shaker half-sang the words, “Come along.” He blew “Gone to Ground,” which should have excited them as well as the hounds outside.
“What’s this mean?” Diddy asked, puzzled.
Dragon, having given up on a promising denhole, now stood by Diddy’s side. “Don’t know. Someone could have cut themselves.”
“But there’s no footprints. And no scent.” Diddy, young though she was, already displayed formidable powers of logic, powers necessary to a good foxhound.