Full Cry

CHAPTER 31

Sound travels approximately one mile every five seconds. Sister believed it traveled faster in a hunt club. Not that she was ashamed of bedding Gray, far from it, but neither of them was quite ready for public proclamations. Nor did either know if this was the beginning of a relationship or simply a matter of physical comfort.

When she walked out to the kennels at four forty-five, she noticed Lorraine’s car parked in Shaker’s driveway. Maybe the moon, sun, and stars had been aligned for romance. She smiled and walked in the office. The hounds slept, though a few raised their heads. Most humans need clocks. The hounds knew it wasn’t time yet to be called into the draw yard, so they continued to snore, curled up with one another, dreaming of large red foxes. She dropped her amended draw list on the desk, a neon orange line drawn across the top of it, indicating this was the final draw. She’d discovered neon gel ink pens and gone wild with them months ago. Every color now had a special meaning.

Back in the kitchen by five, she checked the outside thermometer: twenty-seven degrees. She clicked on the Weather Channel. The day, according to radar and a host of experts, should warm to the low forties, high pressure overhead. High pressure, theoretically, made scenting more difficult.

Golly leapt onto the counter. “I’d like salmon today. And you certainly look happy, happy, happy.”

Sister grabbed a can of cat food, which happened to be a seafood mix, and dumped it in the ceramic bowl—“The Queen” emblazoned on its side—then ground up a small vitamin. Golly stuck her face in the food as Sister finished sprinkling the vitamin powder over it.

Raleigh and Rooster patiently waited for their kibble mixed with a can of beef.

Sister made herself oatmeal. Today’s fixture was at Tedi and Edward’s, parking at the covered bridge. She thought about the draw. Then she realized she had to plan for the wind shift. She wanted to draw north, but if the wind wasn’t coming out of the northwest as was usual, she’d better produce a backup plan.

“God, this takes every brain cell I have,” she said aloud.

“You can do it!” Raleigh encouraged her. “Think of all that good energy you got last night.”

“Yeah, sex is energy,” Golly agreed.

“Why do people do it under covers?” Rooster cocked an ear.

“No hair, they get cold,” said Golly, who thought of herself as a feline in possession of important facts.

“Oh.” Satisfied, Rooster returned to his breakfast.

“If all else fails, I bet I can pick up a line if I head toward Target’s den.” Sister was drawing a rough outline on a pad. “But usually I’ll get Aunt Netty just above the bridge. Well, I’ll see what Shaker thinks.” Then she smiled. “Bet he’s in a good mood. Making love with cracked ribs might test his mettle, if indeed he did.” She smiled, twirling her pencil.

By the time she and Shaker filled the draw pen, he was whistling, and she was singing. They looked at each other and laughed.

Lorraine’s car was still there.

Sister didn’t refer to it, but she peppered him with questions on the first draw, the wind, how quickly did he think the mercury would climb today?

Finally, Shaker slapped her on the back. “Cast your hounds. Be alert. The best advice I can give you is what Fred Duncan gave me when I was a kid, ‘Hunt your hounds and don’t look back.’ ”

“If Fred said it, must be true.” She had greatly admired the former huntsman and his wife, Doris.

Being a huntsman’s wife called for tact, patience, and humor. Doris had all three, plus creativity of her own. She would sit in the kitchen and write novels. Fred would read them and wonder how he had won such a talented woman.

Successful marriages mean the two main participants enjoy each other. Sister and Big Ray had. That foundation of truly liking one another saw them through many a trial.

“So, Gray left at four-thirty.” Shaker’s lips curled up at the corners, a twinkle in his eye.

“What were you doing up at four-thirty?”

“Had to take four Motrin and two extra-strength Tylenols. Breakfast of champions. Couldn’t go back to sleep. Saw the light on in your kitchen.”

“I didn’t see your light on.”

“Got one of those little book lights, so I can read some.”

“Lorraine still asleep?”

“Guess we both got lucky, huh?” He thought a minute. “The man is supposed to be lucky. What do women say to each other?”

“If they’re smart, nothing.”

He laughed. “Good point.”

“You . . . happy?”

He draped his arm around her broad shoulders, kissing her on one smooth cool cheek. “Yes. I’m a little nervous, too.”

“She’s a good woman from what I can tell.”

“Solid. Shy, but solid.” He kissed her again. “You?”

“Too early to tell, but I’m—” She stopped. “—I’m waking up. I thought I was too old for all this.” She laughed at herself.

“Not you.”

“You haven’t said one word about Gray being African American, black, colored, a person of color, take your pick.”

“I’d like to think those days are over.”

“I do, too. For us maybe they are, except the fact that I brought it up means the worries are still in me. Not like they would have been thirty years ago.” She paused, then spoke with a controlled vengeance. “God, we’re stupid. So bloody stupid. Do you think any of those beautiful hounds cares if another one is tricolor or red or black and tan? I hate it.”

“Ever wonder what it would be like if the situation were reversed? Wake up one morning and you’re black?”

“I’d slap the first silly bastard who mistreated me. Guess I wouldn’t get far in this life.”

Shaker, a thoughtful man, a deeply feeling man, softly replied, “If I was born that way, I would have been shaped, pruned, restrained to hold the anger in, you know, hold it in. All that negative shit, excuse my French, must be like a drop of acid on your soul each time you feel it. The only thing I can liken it to is sexual desire. For men anyway, we are taught to rein it in, control, control, control. One day you let go, and you feel like you’re flying.”

“I thought women were the ones who had to deny their sexuality.”

“Mmm. We both do in different ways. Takes its toll, and you don’t know it until you let it go. But I think about what it’s like to be black in this country. It’s better, but we still have work to do.”

“The work of generations . . . about lots of stuff.” She smiled a small, sweet smile. “I think that’s why I like foxhunters. Half of us are stone stupid and can talk only about hounds, horses, and hunting, or worse; the other half of us are the most interesting people I have ever met. Like you, for instance.”

“Go on.” He squeezed her tight, then released her. “Let’s load these babies up.”

Once at the fixture, Shaker handed her his horn, a symbolic gesture with the significance of a scepter being handed to a ruler.

“Still can’t blow this thing worth a damn, despite your quick lesson.”

“Do the best you can and use your voice. They know you. I’ll get in the truck. I’m on foot, it might confuse them. Their impulse will be to follow me. But you have to use the horn when you move off. They will go to the horn, and they’ll go to you if you encourage them. We didn’t put all those years into this pack to have them fizzle out because I’m on the mend. This is a great pack of hounds, Sister. You love them, and you’re going to do just great.”

She smiled down at him from her mount on Lafayette. “Shaker, you can tell the best fibs, but I love you for it.”

“I mean it.” He did, too. “You can hunt these hounds. Remember, hunt your hounds and don’t look back.”

She rode Lafayette to the assembled field, Edward, the logical choice, acting as field master. Tedi, who knew hunting and the territory, could have just as easily led, but the field was large for this time of year; she didn’t want to tangle with Crawford or other shaky riders. Edward possessed a quiet sense of command. She readily deferred to him. Tedi thought to herself that it was better someone get mad at Edward than at herself.

“Gather round.” Sister called in the faithful. As she scanned the field, she couldn’t help but linger on Gray, who winked. She blushed, smiled, then said, “Our hosts, the Bancrofts, will again spoil us with their hospitality. Breakfast follows. Shaker is mending quickly. He’ll be back Thursday. Edward is your field master, so you’re riding behind the best. Edward will never tell you, but he won Virginia Field Hunter of the Year in 1987. The hounds of the Jefferson Hunt want you to know they are going to get up a fox for you. And I’m so glad they’re smarter than I am. Let’s go.”

The small thermometer in the dash on Sister’s truck had read thirty-four degrees when she had first pulled into After All Farm. Now, as she and Lafayette walked north with hounds alongside the strong-running Snake Creek, the temperature remained close to that. She could feel it on her skin. The bright blue winter skies were cloudless. The frost sparkled on the earth. All pointed to a tough day for scent. But a light northwesterly breeze, a tang of moisture coming in, hinted that maybe in two hours or less, conditions would improve.

In the meantime, she needed to do all she could to flush out a fox. She walked for five minutes, quietly talking to the pack. Settling them, especially with young entry in tow, helped them and helped her. After a long discussion, she and Shaker had decided to include some young entry. Shaker was already on his way, Lorraine as a passenger, to the sunken farm road close to the westernmost border of the Bancroft estate, a border shared with Roughneck Farm.

Knowing she had Shaker as a wheel whip bolstered her confidence. Knowing Betty rode on her left and Sybil on her right also gave her a lift.

“Girl power,” she whispered.

Diana looked up at the human she adored. “You’d better believe it.”

“Ha,” Asa said.

“Bet you one of us finds scent first,” Diana challenged him.

“I’ll take that bet. What about the rest of you boys?” Asa sang out, but not too loudly or Sister would chide him for babbling.

Dasher, Ardent, Trident, Darby, Doughboy, Dreamboat, Rassle, and Ribot quickly picked up the gauntlet.

Cora, up front, smiled, a puff of breath coming from her slightly opened mouth. “Girls, even if we run on rocks all day, we are going to find a fox!”

The girls agreed, then all turned their faces up to their master and now huntsman.

Sister smiled down at them. “Good hounds.”

A powerful emotion burst through her. She was of this pack. She was one of them, the least of them in many ways, and yet the leader. The only love she had ever felt that was this deep was when Ray Jr. used to wrap his arms around her neck and say, “Love ya, Mom.”

She whispered, “Ride with me today, Junior,” then turned her full attention to drawing up the creek bed.

The grade rose by degrees, until Sister and the pack were walking six feet above the creek. The drop into the creek was now sheer. Where eddies slowly swirled, a crust of ice gathered next to the banks.

The smooth pasture containing Nola Bancroft’s grave soon gave way to woodlands.

Behind her, Edward led a field of sixty-five people. Everyone came out today because the snows had made them stir-crazy. This was the first good day since then. Before the first cast, Sister noted that Xavier and Sam kept a careful distance between them. Clay, Walter, Crawford, Dalton, Marty, Jennifer, Sari, Ron, plus visitors, all came out.

She also noted, walking a distance behind them, were Jason Farley with Jimmy Chirios. Bless Tedi and Edward, they found someone to guide a newcomer who couldn’t ride but showed interest.

A warm air current fluttered across her face, a welcoming sign.

“Get ’em up. Get ’em up.”

The hounds, also feeling wind current, a lingering deer scent sliding along with it, put their noses down, fanned out, moving forward at a brisk walk. Raccoons, turkeys, bobcat, deer, and more deer had traipsed through in the predawn hours. Rabbits abounded, now safely tucked in their little grass hutches or hunkered down as flat as they could get. Foxhounds might chase a rabbit for a few bounds if the animal hopped up in front of them, but otherwise the scent offered scant appeal.

Tinsel got a snootful of badger scent. “Cora.”

Cora came over. “Must be more moving in. Strange, strange.”

Young Ruthie, wonderful nose, inhaled, then sputtered a moment. “A heavy fox, a heavy fox.”

Heavy meant pregnant. Dasher and Asa hurried over. Both sniffed, sniffed some more, and then jerked their heads up. Ruthie, in her youth, had made the wrong call.

Cora came over. She inhaled deeply. “Coyote.”

“Dammit!” Asa swore. He knew how ruinous coyotes were to livestock, house pets, and foxes. In his mind, the foxes’ welfare outweighed the others.

Sister noticed, stopped Lafayette. Both human and horse carefully watched.

“Can we run coyote?” Rassle, Ruthie’s littermate, asked.

Cora hesitated for a second. “Yes. They’re fair game, but,” she raised her alto voice, “young ones, they run straight, they run no faster than they must; occasionally one will double back, but this is really a foot race. Don’t forget that. If anywhere along the way, any of you finds fox scent, stop. Stop and tell me. The fox is our primary quarry, understand?”

“Yes,” all responded.

Diana, her voice low, said to Asa, “Thank God, Dragon’s still back in the kennel.”

Asa chuckled. “Right.”

“Ruthie, you found, sing out.” Cora encouraged the youngster.

“Rock and roll.” Ruthie lifted her head a bit then all joined her.

Hounds went from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. Sister, eyes widened, at first didn’t know they were on coyote. Could be fresh fox scent.

Hounds threaded through the woods, pads touching lightly down on the narrow cleared trail. They clambered over a fallen tree, kept on, then burst out of the woods, leaping over the hog’s back jump in the fence line separating After All Farm from Roughneck Farm. They’d covered two miles in minutes.

The electrifying pace only increased as they charged through the meadows, blasted along the edges of the wide wildflower field, the stalks of the odd wisps of broom sage bent with winter’s woes, the earth beginning to slightly soften, releasing ever more scent on this crisp day.

As Sister flew along behind her hounds, she noticed they headed straight for the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge. A large dark gray cloud peeped over the uppermost edge of this long formidable ridge.

Hounds circled the bottom of the ridge. On the Soldier Road side, they abruptly cut up the ridge on an old deer trail.

Lafayette effortlessly followed, his long stride making the ride comfortable.

Sister blew a few strangled notes when hounds first took off. Now she relied on her voice. She whooped and hollered, shouting as she and Lafayette began to climb to the top of the ridge.

Halfway up, they were enshrouded in a thick veil of white mist. By the time they reached the top, she could barely see fifty yards ahead of her. The heavy moisture in the low cloud felt clammy.

Onward and upward hounds roared. As they passed the hanging tree, they ignored the mournful spirits there. The wind rustled that strange low howl, whistling at a varying pitch just as Sister rode by. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the specter of a well-dressed eighteenth-century gentleman standing next to a Confederate veteran in full uniform.

“Balls,” she said out loud, and heard a ghostly snicker.

She loathed this place. Lafayette snorted. They galloped, clods of thawing turf flying up behind his hooves, to the end of the ridge, down the wide dirt road, the last road the convicted ever trod.

Then along the farm road—faster and faster, farther and farther—past the turn into her farm, hounds in the kennel making one hell of a racket, down the farm road, out to the tertiary road, the briefest of checks.

Sister dropped her head, then tipped it back, gulping air. She turned her head, looking back. Behind her, the clouds slid from the ridge, some fingering down the Blue Ridge Mountains as well. Weather was not just making its way in from the west, it was coming full throttle.

She saw Edward emerge at the bottom of the ridge, a dot in bright red.

“Cross the road,” Ardent sounded.

The others picked up the line where he’d found it, and on they flew on a southeast line. They shot through the tiny graveyard, marked only by an upright stone. Legend was this was the last stop for suicides who could not be buried in consecrated ground. No one knew for certain. Hounds kept running again, coming out on another tertiary road, the gravel spitting up beneath their claws as they dug in for purchase. The top of the road darkened as dew sank into the bluestone. Lafayette thundered across it, plunging into the rows of cornstalks, leaves making an eerie rustle as the wind picked up.

They were at Alice Ramy’s northernmost border. She left the corn up for wildlife every winter. Hounds reached the end of the cornfield, hooked left, and forded an old drainage ditch, snow filling the bottom.

Sister and Lafayette didn’t even look down. They flew over the wide ditch as though at the Grand National. A soft thud on the other side as they landed, Lafayette reached out with his forelegs and on they ran, now turning northward, then northeast. Again, they crossed the dirt road, over the meadows, into another wooded area, land mines of rock everywhere, tough soil.

Hounds stopped. Searched.

Sister stopped, hearing the hooves behind her about a quarter of a mile. She figured the drainage ditch held some of them up. God knew, Edward would fly over it.

Hounds moved at a slow, deliberate pace, trying to pick up the scent. The coyote, pausing for a breather on the rim of a ravine a half mile away, heard them, judged the distance between himself and the pack, then trotted toward After All Farm.

He crossed the paved highway, a two-way road with a painted center line, walked down a steep embankment, and then loped toward his den at the southern edge of After All Farm, not a third of a mile away.

Hounds found his line. By the time they reached the den, he was safely inside.

Sister dismounted, blew “Gone to Ground” with what wind she had left. She studied the tracks. “Knew it, god-dammit.”

“Well, we knew they were here.” Betty, who had swung in, looked down.

“What a pity.” Sybil, also joining the pack, face cherry red, mourned.

“If we’re very lucky, they won’t run off our foxes. Still, I think we should shoot every damned one of them.” Sister bore no love for the coyote.

“Yeah,” Betty agreed.

Edward, top hat firmly in place, red hat cord ensuring it wouldn’t be lost, relaxed his shoulders a moment.

“What a run,” Crawford enthused.

Coyote did give glorious runs, but the play by play was much simpler. It was the difference between high school football and the pros. The coyote didn’t use the ruses the fox did, and most dyed-in-the-wool foxhunters wanted to pit themselves against the cleverest of creatures. The coyote might be wily, but he wasn’t sporting like the fox.

Hounds, jubilant at putting their game to ground, sterns upright, eyes clear and happy, pranced as they packed in back to After All Farm.

“Girls won.” Cora laughed.

Asa, generous, conceded, then said, “After a go like that, I’d say we all won.”

“Yes, well done, youngsters,” Diana praised the firstyear entry, who beamed.

As the field walked back, clouds filling half the western sky, a little spit could be seen coming from them: more snow.

“Mercury’s taking a nose dive,” Betty mentioned.

Sybil hunched up her shoulders. “What a winter we’re having.”

“Was Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit who first put mercury in a thermometer. Born in Poland in 1686. Just think how every day we are enriched by someone who went before us,” Sister mused.

“It is pretty wonderful.” Betty smiled.

“Bet you by the time we get to the covered bridge, snow will be falling there.” Sybil furrowed her brow.

Sister studied the western sky. “Yep.”

Shaker and Lorraine waited at the turnoff to After All Farm. He rolled down the window of the truck, stuck his thumb up.

Sister stuck hers up, too.

He rolled up his window and drove down to the trailers, less than a mile away. He wanted to be at the party wagon when hounds arrived.

Sam, on Cloud Nine, chatted with Gray and Tommy Cullhain. His horse, the timber horse, has a long stride, but he wasn’t paying attention.

The horse bumped Xavier’s paint horse, Picasso.

Xavier turned around, beheld Sam, and snarled, “Drop dead.”

“You first,” Sam fired back.