Full Cry

CHAPTER 29

“Old-fashioned,” Sister said, walking through the freshly washed-down kennels, water squishing under her ancient green Wellies.

Walter, having a light day this Friday, used the afternoon to check in on Shaker and to begin his hound education. “What do you mean by old-fashioned?”

“Oh, a little heavy boned in the foreleg, a bigger barrel than gets pinned in the ring these days, and a somewhat broader skull than is currently finding favor.” She closed and double-latched the heavy chain-link gate leading to the young-entry run. “You breed for the territory, Walter. You’ll get sick of hearing that from me, and truthfully, you breed the kind of hound you or your huntsman can handle. A lot of people can’t handle American hounds; the animal is too sensitive, too up for them.”

“Like house dogs? Some people like terriers; other people like golden retrievers.”

“In a sense, yes. But I swear there are more born liars in the foxhound world than anywhere else but golf and fishing.” She moved along to the hot bitch pen.

Sweetpea, having recently been bred, was already in the special girls’ pen, as Sister called it, the hot bitch pen and whelping area. A steady hound, not brilliant, Sweetpea, when crossed to Sister’s A line or Jill Summers’s J line, produced marvelous hounds. Mrs. Paul Summers Jr. was the long-serving master at Farmington Hunt. She’d bred a consistently fine pack for over thirty-five years.

“Hello.” Sweetpea wagged her tail.

“Sweetpea, you remember Walter.” Sister reached down and smoothed her lovely head, the eyes expressive, filled with intelligence.

“I do.” Sweetpea touched Walter with her nose.

Wanda, more advanced in her pregnancy, hearing voices, padded in from outside, where she’d been taking her constitutional. “I’m here.”

“This is Wanda: great drive, okay nose, strong back end, as you can see. That gives her a lot of power. Her shoulder angle could be better, but at least it’s not straight as a stick. So in breeding Wanda, I want to keep her good features, but see if I can’t improve the shoulder a bit and maybe refine her head just a wee bit. Again, I’m not too much into looks, but conformation is the key, as well as attitude. Same as with horses, of course. Both these girls are so easy to work with, eager to please and keen to hunt. And their offspring are even better. Wanda is bred to a Piedmont hound who actually goes back to Fred Duncan’s incredible Clyde—oh, that was back in the early seventies. That hound could follow scent on a hot asphalt road. Never saw anything like Warrenton Clyde.”

Walter, overwhelmed, sighed. “Sister, how am I going to remember all this? It’s Greek to me.”

Sister, who had a few years of Greek in college, smiled. “If you mastered organic chemistry, bloodlines will be a snap.”

“Can I read up on this?”

“The books start in the early eighteenth century. Well, actually, I think Xenophon even mentioned hound breeding, but don’t fret, Walter. I’ll give you a list of the classics. The MFHA has FoxDog: their computer software. I struggle with it, but Shaker’s got the hang of it. I’m not exactly a computer whiz, but I can send e-mail.”

“FoxDog?” He bent his tall frame over to pat both Wanda and Sweetpea.

“All the bloodlines for every hunt for each of the main types of foxhounds are on FoxDog. I can’t imagine sitting down and entering all that information. God bless the MFHA.” She paused. “But I’ll tell you, the best way to learn about hounds and breeding is to hunt, hunt, hunt, and watch. Go to any hunt you can, mounted or on foot, and observe. The great ones stay in your mind just like the great horses or movie stars.”

“That makes sense.”

“And you’ll soon know what I’m talking about when I say that Piedmont Righteous ’71 was bred to Warrenton Star, which gave us a bitch, Piedmont Daybreak ’79, and she produced Piedmont Hopeful ’83, a very great bitch. A lot of people will say they want Hopeful in the tail female line, and all that sounds impressive, but I just watch hounds. I don’t give a damn if the nick is on top or on bottom—”

Walter held up his hand. “Sister, what’s a nick? You’ve lost me.”

“Nick is a bad hound who hunts coons.” Wanda was referring to a neighbor’s hound, whom she didn’t much like. Although Nick was a good coonhound, he didn’t pay his proper respects to Wanda—a girl with a big ego.

“I think of a nick as a lucky cross. Funny Cide, terrific racing horse, a gelding, you know whom I’m talking about?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, he won’t be retired to stud, but people will study his pedigree and try the same or similar cross if they can. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you can get a good result playing with the template, if you will. Instead of just copying something that in the thoroughbred world would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars, reverse the nick or go back to the grandparent generation. If you study, Walter, there’s always a way. I study pedigree. I study hounds, study horses, too. And one of the great things about foxhunting is I can call another master in order to take a bitch to his dog; he or she is flattered. Of course, masters allow this and everyone benefits. You don’t pay for it. The opportunity is freely given. Foxhunting operates on generosity. We improve the animal if we’re careful. The operative word is ‘careful.’ ”

“What’s tail line and all that?”

“Oh. The tail line is the bottom of a breeding chart, the dam or bitch’s side. The top belongs to the dog hound or stallion. I’ll show you when we go in to the office, but you’ll see right what I mean when you check a pedigree. It’s a good thing to study and research pedigrees. It’s a better thing to see performance in the field and to talk to those who know the antecedents of a good hound.”

“I’ve got my work cut out for me.” He whistled. “Can’t wait. And Sweetpea and Wanda, I can’t wait to see the babies.”

“Mine will be better,” Wanda bragged.

Sweetpea, easygoing, just licked Sister’s hand. “I love you, Sister. I’ll give you good puppies.”

“Precious.” Sister kissed her head, then patted Wanda.

They left, closing the gate behind them, and walked the long outdoor corridor to the main kennel building. Once inside, she showed him Sweetpea’s pedigree of this year’s entry from Sweetpea and Ardent. Walter realized the format was exactly the same as a horse pedigree. He felt better.

The door opened, and Shaker stepped through. “Draw list for tomorrow?”

“Haven’t done it yet. Did you do yours?”

“Yes.” He placed his list on the desk then spoke to Walter. “I’m not sitting around.”

“Give it another day, Shaker. Really. I’m not worried about your ribs. The concussion worried me even though it wasn’t bad. But give it another day.”

“Who’s going to hunt hounds tomorrow? I need to go out.”

“You and Lorraine can be wheel whips. I’m not taking any chances with you. If you miss tomorrow, well, it’s not great, but if you miss the rest of the season, the best part of the season, I’ll be one step ahead of a fit,” Sister reminded him.

Shaker sat on the edge of the desk. “For Chrissakes, people get their bell rung all the time.”

“They aren’t fabulous huntsmen. And how do you blow the horn when you’re galloping?” Sister hoped the compliment would somewhat mollify him.

“Practice. It’s a good idea to go out with an empty bladder, too.”

“I figured that out.” She laughed. “I’ll hunt the hounds tomorrow. God willing, nothing awful will happen. Let’s take steady eddies, no young entry. Make it easy for me. Tuesday, you’ll be back in the saddle and all will be well.”

“No, what’s going to happen is you’ll love hunting hounds, and we’ll have a fight,” Shaker grumbled.

“I will love hunting them. I loved yesterday even though I had butterflies, but you’re the huntsman and huntsman you’ll stay.” She swiftly ran her eyes down the draw list, dogs on the left side of the page, bitches on the right, firstyear entry, young entry, and even some second year with a different-colored mark before the animal’s name. It was a good system. “I’ll get back to you on this.”

Up at the house, Sister asked Walter about Shaker’s injuries as she heated water for tea.

“This is the third time you’ve asked since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. He’s very dear to me, even if we fuss.”

“He hit hard. He can wrap up his ribs. I want a few more days for his head. By the time I saw him, he was in pretty good shape from the concussion, but you always want to be careful with a head injury.”

“Thank you again for seeing him. I guess we could have sent him to the ER, but I trust you; I don’t know who’s in the ER.”

Walter smiled. “Thank you for your confidence, but the team down at the hospital is very good.”

She poured tea. Walter liked dark teas, as did she. “You don’t know much about foxhounds; I don’t know diddly about medicine. What really is an endocrinologist?”

“Someone in the right field at the right time. It’s the study of ductless glands. So it’s really the study of the thyroid, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands, basic human chemistry.”

“Lucrative?”

“Very. If you have a child whose growth is stunted, you’d go to an endocrinologist. Menopause—think of the money there with the boomer generation. It’s a growing field that will benefit from the constant advancements just in thyroid studies alone. Pretty amazing.”

“Would an endocrinologist have more ways to make illegal money than, say, yourself?”

“From medicine?” Walter’s blond eyebrows rose. “Uh, well, Sister, any crooked doctor can make a fortune. Prescribe unnecessary painkillers, OxyContin, mood elevators, Percodan, Prozac. If you’re less than honest, it’s easy, because, of course, the patient wants the drugs.”

“What about cocaine or heroin?”

Walter couldn’t help but laugh. “You don’t need a doctor. You can get that on the street.”

“It’s really easy to get coke or marijuana?”

“As pie. Easy as pie.” Walter sipped the restorative brew. “Our government, the FDA, I could list agencies as long as my arm, and I’ve got long arms, make the mess bigger and bigger. Some drugs are classified as dangerous; others aren’t. I could kill you with caffeine. There’s a hit of caffeine in this tea. Sister, I could kill you with sugar or salt. Americans are literally killing themselves every day with salt and sugar. We are so hypocritical when it comes to— what’s the term?—illegal substances. You’ve got people making policy based on their version of morals instead of, well, endocrinology. And I’m serious: I could kill someone with caffeine. I’m a doctor; in order to save lives, you have to know what takes those lives. Any doctor worth his salt, forgive the pun, can kill and make it look perfectly natural. But as I said, why bother? Americans are killing themselves.”

She drummed her fingers on the kitchen table. “Mmm.”

“Why this sudden interest in endocrinology?”

“Dalton Hill’s speciality. He’s paid his associate membership; he’s been hunting pretty consistently. Good rider.”

“Bought that Cleveland bay.”

“Yes.” She frowned a moment. “Obviously, he has money.”

“Right.” Walter smiled. “He’s an endocrinologist.”

She smiled back. “What do you know about him?”

Walter shrugged. “Leave of absence from the Toronto hospital, teaching this semester, and he’s brilliant. That’s what I hear.”

“Do you like him?”

A long pause followed her question. Walter cleared his throat. “Not really.”

“Cold.”

“More or less. He’s thawing a bit, thanks to your geniality and the hospitality of Virginians in general.” Walter thanked her as she refreshed his tea. “He’s recently divorced, which is why I think he’s teaching this semester. A chance to get away. Clear the head.”

“I’ve been curious about him.” She smiled again. “Can’t have too many doctors in the field. Wish we could get the entire hospital staff to hunt.”

“You wouldn’t want that. We’ve got some first-class fruitcakes.”

“And the hunt doesn’t?”

They laughed.

“Back to hounds,” Walter said. “Can you breed for the task? By that I mean, can you breed an anchor hound?”

“We could be here for weeks on that one. Well . . . yes and no. I have noticed certain characteristics passing in certain of my lines. For example, Delia, mother of Diddy and those first-year entry, comes from my D line. D hounds are consistently steady, and they enter and learn fairly quickly. On the other hand, I’ve observed that my R line can be brilliant, but it seems to skip a generation. Rassle, Ruthie, and Ribot are brilliant. Their mother wasn’t; she was just there. Her mother was outstanding. Like I said, the answer to your question is yes and no.”

“It’s fascinating.”

“And highly addictive.” She reached for a sugar cookie. “The more you breed, the more you want to breed, and you drive yourself onward with the dream of perfection.” She sighed. “Well, humility goes a long way. And even in the great crosses, the golden nicks, you still must cull.”

“The hard part.”

“God, yes. I think a youngster won’t work for us, I draft him to a good pack, he’s terrific. Now some of that can be because he’s in, say, a newer pack. He’s not overshadowed by Diana or an upcoming Trident. He becomes a star. But you never truly know until they hunt for you or for someone else.”

“This is going to make me think.” Walter laughed.

“You think plenty. Now you’ll be hunting, watching in a new way. You’ll be singling out hounds, observing young entry, seeing who contributes. The slow days are the best days to learn about the hounds. You see who really works. Might be dull for the run-and-jump crowd, but those slow days offer the best lessons a foxhunter can get.”

“I’ve never had a bad day hunting.”

“A bad day’s hunting is a good day’s work.” They laughed again and she changed the subject. “I’ve learned to trust my instincts hunting on and off a horse as well. I’m unsettled about Donnie’s death. And the deaths of Mitch and Tony.”

“Do you think Donnie wanted to burn out Clay?”

“Sure looks like he did.” Sister glanced out the window. “It’s like drawing through a heavy covert: you know the fox is in there, but you can’t get him up and running. I’ve seen days when hounds, my hounds and other packs, too, have drawn right over a fox. I feel that’s what’s going on.”

“What do you do on a day like that?”

“Keep moving, but,” she paused dramatically, “later you can come back and draw in the opposite direction. Sometimes you can get him up that way because he didn’t expect it.”

Walter tapped his spoon on the side of the mug, then stopped. “Sorry.”

“Is that how you think?”

“I have to do something rhythmic,” he replied.

“I do my best thinking working outside or sometimes in bed just before I fall asleep. But do you see what I mean about drawing over the fox? We’re drawing over those deaths, over information.”

“I’d put it another way. You’re on the right track, but the train’s not in the station.”

“Not yet.”