Homeward Hound

CHAPTER 20

Hoofbeats reverberated through the covered bridge as the field crossed over to the other side of Broad Creek. After All, manicured, every building in perfect condition including the covered bridge, loose board repaired, was a beloved fixture. Today, Saturday, sixty-five people, happy to be out, showed up, parked on the western side of the bridge.

The house, painted brick, Georgian, perched atop a low rise on the eastern side. Broad Creek, which flowed throughout the entire county, swept along below the house, hence the covered bridge. Fields, fenced, three-board painted white, extra maintenance that white, had been prepared for spring. Granted spring lay in the future but at the end of fall, the Bancrofts cut down most of the fields, turning over topsoil, be it hay, oats, or even a field of soybeans. When the weather warmed up all they had to do was plow and plant. However, the fields, a good two miles away that abutted Sister’s place, were always left in standing corn. The upper ears had been plucked but the lower remained for forage for wildlife but especially the foxes.

Jefferson Hunt Club foxes lived well. Apart from corn consideration they were wormed once a month with wormer sprinkled on the kibble in special boxes. This stopped in March as the wormer would kill the unborn foxes. Those luxurious coats, bracing runs proved the effectiveness of Sister’s health and feeding program. If possible, a young fox would be trapped, given a rabies shot, a seven-in-one shot. You never trapped them twice, they were too smart, but there hadn’t been a case of vulpine rabies in Sister’s territory for twelve years, a wonderful feat. The odd meds put out from time to time, fought off ticks and fleas as well as skin problems.

Sister operated on the assumption that a healthy fox will give you a healthy run. She also operated on the assumption that you were only as old as the horse you were riding, well, she cheated a little but she did convert horse years into human years. Her rule of thumb was five years per human one, absolutely accurate, she didn’t know but it worked for her. She was riding Keepsake, a twelve-year-old bay appendix, so he was sixty in human years. Horses, hounds, and people if they stayed fit could just go and go. The Bancrofts, now in their middle eighties, always started out right behind Sister. If the hunt proved long and hard, they fell back to the middle of the pack.

Foxhunters all believe when you stop you die. Keep riding whether it’s First Flight or behind but throw your leg over a horse. Face the wind, snow, sleet, rain, or sun. They were all certain one of the reasons they so rarely came down with the flu or colds was they hunted in all weather.

Aunt Netty, a fox edging toward senior citizenship, actually she was there, did not share this philosophy. When the rain slashed sideways or the snow covered everything, she lounged at Pattypan Forge. Huge, abandoned since right after World War I, the forge, operating since the 1700s, evidenced many comforts. For one thing, Sister always filled a big feeder box with kibble, usually once every two weeks. Scraps might be tossed in the kibble.

In her prime, Aunt Netty gave many a merry chase. She was still dazzling for a half an hour, but then she needed to duck in somewhere. Truthfully, Aunt Netty was slowing down. Also she endured a separation from her mate, Uncle Yancy, as they agreed. The owl, Athena, living at Pattypan, called it a divorce, which infuriated Aunt Netty. It was a separation provoked by Uncle Yancy’s terrible housekeeping habits. That was Aunt Netty’s version.

She’d meandered down to the main house as the morning, brisk, was a great improvement over the last two weeks of weather including the January thaw, which the fox never trusted. The Bancrofts had the best garbage in Albemarle County. Aunt Netty wanted to pry off a garbage can lid. The raccoons got there before she did. Harsh words were spoken. As there were three of the bandits, Aunt Netty retreated. She heard the horse trailers drive in so she headed back toward Pattypan Forge. About halfway there she could hear the hoofbeats in the covered bridge.

Once everyone passed through the bridge, Shaker waited a moment so Sister could count heads. Right behind the Bancrofts, Kasmir and Alida rode, Freddie behind them. Then a large gaggle of people, Walter, Ben, Sam, even Gray was in the mix, Dewey, Bobby, Margaret, Cindy, Skiff, allowed off work today, anyone who could go out did. Guests from Keswick, Farmington, Stonewall, even Bull Run showed up along with a few dear friends from Deep Run. People felt like hunting around today but then again, After All was one of those prime fixtures, plus the breakfasts never failed to impress.

Sister nodded to Shaker. He spoke a few soft words to the pack, then trotted up Broad Creek, the water rushing down thanks to snowmelt. Aunt Netty’s scent, strong, set hounds moving in two minutes, if that.

The day, low forties, dark clouds overhead, not much wind, promised good sport. Aunt Daniella and Yvonne slowly followed at a distance. No other car crept along. Most everybody who could was riding.

Aunt Netty heard the hounds. Pattypan, deep in rough woods, gave her the luxury of not having to fly at top speed. However, given the youngsters in the pack, the older red fox didn’t underestimate them. She picked up speed, zigged and zagged. Once on a narrow deer trail she paused a moment to listen. Hounds sounded all on so she’d better just get home.

Hounds remained on the “house” side of the creek. Aunt Netty had crossed up ahead by cleverly walking across a fallen tree that had come down in the high winds and snowstorm. She could readily walk across but the hounds couldn’t. They had to launch into the swollen creek. Shaker walked up, looking for his usual crossing. It, too, was submerged. He squeezed Gunpowder. The Thoroughbred readily jumped down, water splashing upward, but it did stay out of Shaker’s boots. Hell riding with sloshing boots, cold wet feet.

Tootie moved farther up creek; she wanted to make sure if hounds turned left she’d be there, and Betty made the same decision on the right. Both Tootie and Betty rode on decent paths, decent for this mess of woods, but Weevil, like Shaker, battled vines, low-hanging branches, a muddy pothole here and there.

Finally Pattypan Forge appeared. Hounds leapt through the story-high broken windows, the glass long gone as those windows had been broken for nearly a century. However, the forge stood as did huge iron pots, the odds and ends of a once thriving forge.

Aunt Netty’s den started at the one side of the forge with openings all over. No need. Hounds couldn’t reach her no matter what.

Ardent complained at one of the openings. “That wasn’t much of a run.”

“Maybe you aren’t much of a hound,” she fired back.

He started digging, dirt flying behind him.

The field, waiting outside, as was Shaker, blowing the hounds back to him, listened to a yip and a yap inside. Hounds stayed put.

Shaker dismounted, stepped over a windowsill as the windows were almost ceiling to ground. “All right.”

“She’s terrible!” Thimble complained.

He blew “Gone to Ground,” which is what they wanted to hear, including Aunt Netty, because then they’d leave.

“Come along. We’ll pick up another fox.”

“Come on.” Dragon followed the huntsman.

As they all filed outside, Athena, the great horned owl who also had apartments all over the place, swooped down from a rafter, out the window, and right over the field, spooking some horses.

Alida, caught off guard, slipped sideways, but Dewey rode right up alongside her, held her up with one arm.

“Thanks.” Alida righted herself. Her feet did not touch the ground so no one could say she came off. She didn’t, but she sure looked unstable.

Hounds wanted to get on terms with their quarry as soon as possible, as did Shaker. If he returned the way he came, hounds risked running heel. He could correct them—they were good hounds—but why fool with it? The only reason to retrace one’s steps is the other ways out of Pattypan Forge, filled with overgrowth, fallen trees, took time as well as cut a few faces. Still, if there was fresh scent, it would be either north, east, or west, so he plunged west. No going south.

Betty, hearing, drifted farther east until she emerged on the gravel road between After All and the Old Lorillard place. Creeping behind her at a distance came Yvonne and Aunt Daniella.

Tootie, remembering a decent deer path, stepped on it. While this took her out of the way she would emerge below the Old Lorillard place, being in good position for whatever might happen next unless a fox struck out due west.

Noses down, hounds walked with deliberation. A whiff of bear, deer, they ignored. Finally, they, too, emerged on the gravel road.

Cora crossed it, dropping into the woods on the far east side of the farm road. This woods wasn’t as thick as what everyone called the Pattypan woods.

Nothing, so she hopped back up on the road, waiting for Shaker.

Once on the road, Weevil at his rear, Shaker cast toward the Old Lorillard place. Uncle Yancy lived there and usually offered a bit of a run until the clever fellow dashed into one of his many places to elude hounds.

Along they all walked, the field out on the road finally. Although a farm road, it was well maintained with crushed rock.

Tootie waited by an outbuilding, which the Lorillard brothers used for extra firewood, a closer one right behind the house. However, one can never stack enough wood in the winter. They could always fill the front-end loader with this, refill the woodhouse by the house if necessary.

Dragon walked over to her, nose to the ground. His stern wagged. He opened. Arrogant though he was, Dragon was rarely wrong. The pack came to him and instead of running toward the house, they ran due west, skirting the Pattypan woods but crossing roaring tributaries of Broad Creek finally bursting out, for it was now a flat-out run, onto the cornfields at the westernmost end.

Sister, keeping up, watched for any sign of movement in the standing corn. Nothing there, but then hounds soared over an old, large hog’s back jump. She followed after Weevil, found herself on her wildflower meadow, denuded, charging across, soil relatively dried out, all things considered. One by one First Flight negotiated the hog’s back, the first really big jump of the day, while Bobby Franklin had to hurry to a gate, lean over, and try to lift the chain with the handle of his staghorn crop.

Before Sister knew it, she’d passed Tootie’s cottage, jumped out of that area over a simple fence, came out onto her back farm road. The fox had headed straight up toward Hangman’s Ridge, so hounds followed, as did she. The climb, not precipitous, was steep enough; by the time she reached the large flat pasture on top, the enormous Hangman’s tree in the middle, hounds barreled across it, down on the other side.

Galloping down took a tight seat and good balance, which fortunately the Master had but not everyone in the field did. She could hear commotion behind her but she couldn’t stop. That wasn’t her job. Her job was to stay behind hounds and this she did until down on the other side of Hangman’s Ridge they screeched to a stop. She could see Cindy Chandler’s fence along Soldier Road, that’s how far they’d run.

Hounds milled about. Horses and humans took deep breaths and those who had parted company from their horses straggled down, muddied a bit, last of all, even behind Bobby Franklin, who as usual shepherded everyone and kept them mounted.

Weevil drifted to the side and rear of hounds. They didn’t turn. Betty, far ahead, guarded the road. You didn’t want a pack of hounds out on Soldier Road without someone stopping traffic. Luckily, there wasn’t much, but it only takes one car.

Shaker cast in a circle very slowly. But no scent. Where they waited, the field full of old broomstraw should have held scent, but nothing.

The huntsman was certain they’d been on a fox, most likely a visiting dog fox, but how did he get away without leaving a trace? He scanned the ground for fallen logs, checked the base of a few old trees down low: no dens in the bottom. Nor did he see any holes in the ground or under a large rock here or there.

Once again the magic of a fox foiled them. What a good fox, too. Just ran straight as an arrow.

Shaker turned, rode up to Sister, both of them still taking deep breaths.

“I can cast as you say, but let’s walk to wherever that might be. Thanks to all that bad weather, we aren’t as fit as usual this time of year.”

She smiled at him. “We’ve been out for two and a half hours. That’s enough.”

“It can’t be.” Shaker shook his head.

She pulled out her grandfather’s magnificent pocket watch, flicked open the gold cover, held it toward him. He leaned over to peer at it.

“I would have sworn we were only out for forty-five minutes.”

“Time changes on a great run. It makes me wonder about all those time theories. A pity Einstein wasn’t a foxhunter.”

Shaker laughed. “Beats writing on a blackboard. So, Master, what next?”

“We lost a few people running downhill. I would have thought we’d lose them at the hog’s back but they all made it. Why don’t we go back up, walk past that hateful hanging tree, go down, and you, Betty, Tootie, Weevil, and I can put the hounds up since we’re at the farm. Then we can drive over to After All. We’ll be just in time for breakfast.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He tapped his cap with his crop, calling out. “Come along. Come along, good hounds.”

“I’d get another fox. I’m not tired,” Dragon bragged.

“We’d all get another fox.” Diana, his littermate, agreed. “But we’d wind up with only staff and maybe three people in the hunt field. We haven’t had a run like this since before the snowstorm.”

“If the weather stays like this, they’ll all be right in no time.” Trident smiled, eager as only a youngster can be.

“But the weather never stays consistent on the other side of New Year’s,” Giorgio prophesied. “Mark my words.”

Pickens said, “We can hunt no matter what.”

“Pickens”—Zane walked next to him—“we don’t need to be in a snowstorm like we were at Christmas Hunt. That was truly hateful.”

“Hear, hear.” The rest of the pack agreed.

Sister smiled, thinking the hounds chatty.

Forty minutes later hunt staff joined the people at the breakfast. Others were trickling in, having put their horses in trailers or tying them next to them. People changed into their tweed coats, wiped dirt off their bottoms if they could. People had popped off like toast.

Aunt Daniella talked with enthusiasm to Tedi and Edward Bancroft, as they had known one another for most of their long lives, shared many of the same reference points.

Yvonne, encircled by men, chatted amiably as Tootie and Weevil reviewed the hunt.

“How’d you find that outbuilding? I’m surprised you remembered.” Weevil complimented her. He’d studied maps as well as asked territory questions.

“If I go somewhere even once, I almost always remember.” She looked into his bright blue eyes as though registering them for the first time. “I thought we were on a coyote at first.”

He nodded. “Me, too, but then I hadn’t heard anyone say they’d seen one in our territory so I figured a red.”

“Wasn’t Ardent terrific? It’s his ‘A’ line. Asa is the oldest but if you go into the graveyard, well, you’ve been there, the brass hound in the middle is Archie. Sister tells such stories about him.”

He smiled at her. “She loves her hounds. That’s why I hunt. I want to be with hounds.”

Sister joined Yvonne and the crowd. Gray came next to her, slipping his arm around her waist. Both of them had been raised to not be very physically demonstrative but she glowed—a hard run always made her glow. She looked up at him, thinking as she always did that he was one of the kindest men she had ever known as well as one of the most handsome.

“And then Tootie cut out a back door, two mudflaps.” Yvonne continued, then held up her hand, the ring on her ring finger.

“I asked the Van Dorns if they’d lost a ring but they hadn’t. I can’t imagine leaving Beveridge Hundred. It felt like home the first time I saw it and Tootie has helped me move stuff about. I hope this pipeline threat doesn’t upset them too much. But if you’ve lived somewhere most of your life, a change like that would be hard to bear.”

“Hard to bear no matter what,” Dewey said. “And the land would drop in value. That, too, would be hard. Plus if I lived where a fox brought me such a beautiful ring, I’d never leave. The fox alone pumps up the land value, hell with the pipeline.”

“We’ll all probably outlive our money.” Betty laughed.

“Maybe not all of us,” Dewey rejoined.

“The point is to live long enough to be a trial to everyone,” Aunt Daniella, having overheard, called out.

“You’ve succeeded, Aunt Dan.” Gray lifted a glass to her, as did the others, to much laughter.