Homeward Hound

CHAPTER 31

Hearing the trucks and trailers, Inky decided she’d stay inside her den this Saturday, February third. Target, under Tootie’s front porch, made the same decision. Both foxes lived in dens perfectly placed to know what was going on. The food was good, too. One could saunter into the stables at night, pick up tidbits left on a tack trunk or nibble on sweet feed. The sweet feed rolled in molasses was the best. Both Sister and Tootie put out table scraps. Inky, black as coal, and Target, flashy red, were spoiled.

Living such a good life did attract other foxes for overlong visits. Comet, a gray in the prime of life, paid just such a call last night. Comet created a backup den under the cottage. Fortunately there was so much food, the two males didn’t fight about it, but Target resented Comet’s dropping in and out. He should make up his mind and stay at After All. Comet, on the other hand, felt he had earned a spacious den near the covered bridge at After All. The den at Roughneck Farm he considered his second home, a condominium. Usually he came over for those extra treats as well as gossip.

“Is it true that Uncle Yancy sleeps above the mudroom door into the kitchen at the Old Lorillard place?” Target asked.

“Says he does. I haven’t gone over there to look,” Comet answered. “The good thing about the Lorillard place is there are plenty of escape routes. The bad thing is one is too close to Pattypan Forge. I hate that place.”

“Dark,” was all Target said.

“Dark and you have to put up with Aunt Netty.”

“Aunt Netty has many opinions all of which she wishes to share.” Target laughed. “Poor Yancy.”

Comet felt the same way. “I’m going to duck out for a minute and see what they’re up to. If I were the huntsman I’d cast toward After All. Always a lot of jumps, the stuff they like.”

“Tell me which way the wind is blowing. I’ll tell you how he’ll cast,” Target promised.

Comet left the den by the front entrance, slipped out from under the stone foundation, full of lots of fox-sized holes. The foundation lifted up the house, or rather the house was rested upon it and the newer portion, the clapboard part, had lattice around the bottom so the notched hardwood logs used as part of the foundation didn’t show. Sections of the log had been cut out to make it easy for a human to crawl underneath if something needed fixing.

Sitting perfectly still, the elegant gray observed a flurry of activity. Horses being backed off trailers, humans slapping a rag at their boots to knock off newly accumulated dirt, and, as always, two humans facing each other. Comet watched as a tall lady flipped over one end of a snowy white stock tie, then flipped it under the big square knot. The other side duplicated this so that the tails of the tie crossed over each other under the carefully tidied square knot, a big knot.

What a lot of work, the gray thought to himself.

He could hear half-grown puppies wailing, howling, bitter tears. “I want to go.” “I’m big enough.” “I know the horn calls.” The list continued at a high decibel range.

Comet slipped back into the main part of Target’s den. “You should see the people. A real mob.”

“It’s occurring to them that the season is flying along. Maybe six more weeks left.” He licked a paw. “They might remember that some of our worst snowstorms happen in March.”

“That and the wind,” Comet replied.

“And how bad is the wind and from what direction?”

“Steady but not a great force. Enough to ruffle your fur and it’s from the northwest per usual.”

Target lay down, paws crossed in front of him. “He’ll cast toward After All and then when he gets into the woods he’ll turn either north or south. He doesn’t want the wind at their tails.”

As Target predicted, Weevil, hounds, and whippers-in waited while the large field pulled themselves together. Shaker, back from the hospital, talked to people as they rode by. Then he climbed into Skiff’s car to follow as best they could by car. Aunt Daniella and Yvonne chose to miss today’s hunt, each having other obligations as well as wondering what might happen hunting today. They were happy to miss it.

“Master?” Weevil asked Sister.

Walter, out today, rode tail in First Flight, the best position for a doctor who doesn’t mind working on his day off.

“Let’s go.” Sister smiled at the young man.

“Come along,” Weevil called to the hounds, eager to get cracking.

They jumped over the simple coop in the fence line around the pasture behind and surrounding Tootie’s cottage and Shaker’s. Behind that reposed the large wildflower field so another jump was necessary. This one was three substantial logs stacked as end logs, cut so the large logs could be dropped in. These natural jumps, if you had manpower or a front-end loader, could be easily built as well as inexpensively built. A coop, on the other hand, relied on seasoned planed boards from the lumberyard. That could cost you, plus you had to paint them. However, a coop could be built in a garage and driven to its final destination. This saved many man-hours.

Bobby Franklin led Second Flight to each gate, leaned over, flipped the Kiwi latch, shaped like a comma, a godsend to riders, pushed open the gate from the side of his horse, calling out, “Gate, please.”

That meant the last rider in Second Flight had to close the gate accompanied by one other rider. As no horse wants to be left behind when others move off, a companion was good manners as well as prudent.

On all her gates Sister had affixed a small wheel at the free end. This made opening and closing easy until there was snow. Fortunately, the snow melted except for in the ravines.

Dreamboat, behind Diana, said, “Feels like a good day.”

“Does,” she replied.

Before jumping into After All’s cornfield, Weevil cast them in the wildflower field. A thin veil of clouds filtered sunlight but kept the temperature from climbing rapidly. The mercury hung at 43ºF, good for scent. While 43ºF will keep your hands and feet cold if you don’t have thin multilayers of socks or tiny little warming footpads, you won’t freeze and your feet and hands won’t hurt but you’ll know it’s colder as opposed to warmer.

The temperature bounces created problems of their own. Shooting from high teens, low twenties up into the forties means scent is released but it may not hold, depending on the soil. There’s not much vegetation this time of year except for creepers that will survive anything. But cutover fields helped and once hounds could get into the woods, that always helped because it was a few degrees cooler.

All the hounds worked the wildflower field, but nothing.

Weevil popped over the hog’s back jump, followed by the field. The standing corn left by the Bancrofts still had a bit of frost on the north side. The harvested stalks farther up had been picked clean.

Weevil slowly drew through as he headed along the edge for the woods.

“Here,” Dreamboat called out to the right of his sister.

Didn’t take a minute, everyone was on. The fox, whoever he was, proved ungracious because he had moved through the middle of the cornfield so the field had to stay on the edge. Running south, everyone could see hounds as they now flew into the harvest cornfields.

Then, to Sister’s surprise, for she thought the fox would cut into the woods at some point, shoot for Pattypan Forge, scent flickered for a moment, then he headed up straight for the covered bridge perhaps a mile and a half away. Out of the cornfield they hurried, along the embankment to the farm road. By now hounds were flat out, scent burning, but no sight of their quarry.

Galloping hard, Weevil reached the covered bridge, where hounds ducked underneath. The fox used the creek to foul scent. Working both sides of the bank while Sister and the field watched, Zane hit the line on the far side of the creek.

“This way,” the youngster called.

Soon the pack, wet, shaking themselves, roared out of the creek making straight for the house. After All, an unusual structure, sported four Doric columns in the front but the body of the structure itself was fieldstone. The white columns, doorjambs, and window frames contrasted with beige gray stone.

The original owners, flush with money from the Monroe presidency where all the boats rose as the tide rolled in, wanted the Palladian look but wanted to be different, too. They succeeded. Subsequent generations of owners reveled in the look, the deep color of the interior floors, heart pine of extra color depth. The current owners, the Bancrofts, honored the original intent.

However, the fox did not. Charlene, the chased fox, a luscious red, merrily led hounds around the house, being sure to step on the sleeping gardens with hopes of creating problems come spring. Charlene knew she had hounds beat, she was ten minutes in front of them, but she couldn’t resist tearing up After All a little bit.

She’d pressed her dainty paws on the wrought-iron furniture left outside for the winter. Then she zipped around the dependency, a four-over-four house way in the rear, currently empty, an echo of the main house. Hearing hounds come a bit closer, Charlene turned 180 degrees, zapped through the woods. No one saw her winding up at the cottage, also fieldstone, which Weevil had been given by the Bancrofts for living quarters. This was their gift to the club so a year’s rent would be saved. Finding places to rent in the western part of the county wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. Everyone figured that after a year, Sister would extend Weevil’s contract for many years and he would buy himself something suitable.

Charlene liked Weevil as he liked rib-eye steak, which she adored. He’d put the bones out, a few potato skins, butter in those skins, and she gobbled everything. She felt he was her cook. So she enlarged the den at the back corner of the place under the equipment shed. Many entrances and exits added to its practicality. The interior, quite warm, had as its centerpiece a fake fleece–lined jacket, which she took the liberty of stealing. Weevil draped it over an Adirondack chair in the back to air out. He forgot to bring it inside that night so Charlene took it home. Weevil couldn’t figure out what had happened to his jacket.

She curled up in it as she heard hounds reach the back lawn.

Dumb twits, she thought to herself.

Dreamboat, first to the cleverly hidden den opening, yelled down, “You got us wet.”

“You didn’t have to go into the water,” she called back.

“How else would I find your scent again?”

“You could have found another fox. I’m not the only one. You know as well as I do that Aunt Netty runs Pattypan Forge.”

“Aunt Netty is hateful mean.” Dreamboat put his nose right at the den’s entrance, although most of it was under the corner of the equipment shed, which housed a John Deere riding mower, a weed eater, a few gardening tools hung up neatly.

The other hounds crowded around Dreamboat as Weevil dismounted. Tootie had ridden up to hold Matador.

“Well done. Well done.” He praised the hounds, then blew “Gone to Ground.”

Dreamboat looked up into Weevil’s eyes. “I smell red meat, cooked red meat. Do you feed this fox?”

Weevil heard a bark that was Charlene chiding Dreamboat. “Shut up! I don’t want him to stop throwing out meaty bones and furthermore I have a lot of ways to get even.”

“Like what?” Dreamboat sassed.

“Put your nose in my den entrance and I’ll whisper my secret to you.”

Dreamboat did just that and, like a lightning strike, Charlene whacked his nose and her claws hurt.

“Dear God.” Diana laughed, as did the others, for Dreamboat had been snookered.

Even Weevil smiled. Had to give the fox credit. He remounted.

“Tootie, you know this fixture better than I do. Any suggestions?”

“Betty knows more than I do, but if I were you”—Tootie, well educated, used the subjunctive correctly—“I would draw down the creek on the other side, the Roughneck side, even though it’s far away. If we run to the Lorillard place, we’ll run out of territory fast enough. If we pick up a line that heads west or north, we might get a long run.”

“I knew you’d have the answer.” He beamed at her, then turned to walk through the covered bridge, Tootie now ahead so she could get in position.

The clouds thickened a bit, good for scent and temperature. Up the creek they drew, northward. A yip here and a yap there testified to game moving but nothing heated up until Weevil reached the good creek crossing. As he asked Matador to go into the creek, low at that point, the pack was already on the other side.

All at once everyone opened. Noses down and then every hound sang out, flying northwest.

Weevil, close behind, ran on a good trail. Sister, maybe thirty yards behind Weevil, heard the hoofbeats behind her. The sound of a large field running hard, hounds in full cry up ahead, made her heart leap. Lafayette, long fluid stride, loved being in front showing his stuff. He was a vision with the long fluid Thoroughbred stride, appearing effortless.

This trail, well tended, no limbs to duck, seemed almost medieval. The pack could have been hunting on a great ducal estate, trees on either side, many conifers, the ground underneath not too hard but not so soft either. Perfect conditions.

A raven or two cawed from branches. They liked encouraging hounds, for crows, blackbirds, and ravens hated foxes. It was mutual.

The woods opened up ahead. Hounds emerged into an open field, not cut, to the north of the cornfields. The old dried grasses swished as they blew through them. The riders couldn’t see the hounds, but Weevil, close behind, could see a few sterns. This field abruptly ended at Sister’s fence line. Weevil searched for a jump.

“Keep north,” Sister called out.

He rode north, loping along because he didn’t want to lose his hounds. He was about to do so. Thankfully a brush fence appeared. This was an old steeplechase jump retired from the circuit and Sister, never one to pass up something useful, threw it on the back of her truck years ago. Set it in her fence line. While it was incongruous to see a brush jump in a hunting field, there it was and you’d better take it.

As the Bancrofts had fallen back, the pace a little demanding for them now, Kasmir was the first over, then Alida, then Dewey followed by Gray and Sam, who had dropped from the front just a bit to embolden a guest in the field, not exactly overmatched but a lady not accustomed to territory like that in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They all soared over and then it was one after another, really a thrilling sight.

Meanwhile, Tootie ran ahead of Weevil because he had only been in this field once. Betty was already around the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge to reach the other side before hounds climbed up. Rock outcroppings slowed her progress. The fox could just as easily turn around. This territory favored the fox. It was rough. They were on a visiting dog fox, which meant anything goes.

Betty, at the bottom of the ridge on the other side, now heard hounds but they weren’t moving fast at that moment. Hounds, betwixt and between, searched for a good way up Hangman’s Ridge from the southernmost side. There wasn’t one so Tootie fell back.

“Follow me.”

Weevil did just that as she turned left, worked her way around the bottom of the rocky sides then came out at the farm road, which snaked up to the top. By now hounds hard behind their fox climbed, clawed, slipped, and slid their way to the top of the ridge the hard way. Noses down, they moved as one, but now in a circle, for the fox did not drop over the ridge.

Cora focused, lifted her head for one moment. Startled, she put her nose down. Nothing must keep her from her quarry.

Tootie hit the top of the long ridgeline first, Weevil right behind. They kept their eyes on the hounds as hounds turned and then they stopped cold.

Sister, just reaching the top of the farm road, beheld her huntsman and her whipper-in standing stock-still as hounds screamed past them. What the hell! she thought, and then she heard it before she saw it.

A creak, a rhythmic creak.

Looking in the direction where Weevil and Tootie stood frozen, she saw the body of Gregory Luckham hanging from the hanging tree. The rope on the thick branch provided the sound.

Thinking fast, she turned. Kasmir, Alida, Freddie, and Dewey, now on the ridge, also saw the body.

“Hold hard,” she ordered. “Kasmir, get me Ben. He’s out today with Second Flight.”

“Yes, Master.” Kasmir turned, threaded his way through the field pinned on the incline, not knowing what was going on.

“Dewey, bring me Walter.” As Dewey turned, Sister ordered Alida. “Turn the field back, Alida. Wait at the bottom of the ridge or the farm road.”

Then she asked Freddie, “Can you walk with me? If it’s too upsetting, I understand.”

“Sister, if you can take it, I can.” Freddie rode next to Sister.

Neither Weevil nor Tootie could speak and hounds were heard roaring as they tore down the ridge.

“Forgive me.” Weevil awakened as if from a trance. “Forgive me. I should never not be with my hounds.”

“Weevil, this is a great shock. You two go down the farm road. Everyone will be in front of you, but get by if you can and stay with the hounds. If you can pick them up, do. Shaker is somewhere in the truck with Skiff. Perhaps they can help. Put them up and wait at the kennels. You will need to talk to Ben.”

“Yes, Master,” they both said and snapped into action, although Tootie was shaking.

Freddie studied the corpse. “No hands. No eyes. No boots.”

“We know where the hands are or where they were found. We know where the boots were left. The birds took his eyes.”

Walter quickly came up. He, too, was stunned. “Why here? This is insane.”

“It may be that. Will you get closer to the body? I find it odd that the body is intact and not decayed.” Sister’s mind was working just fine.

As the three drew closer to Gregory Luckham, Betty charged up the trail, came out onto the ridge, saw the three even as she heard hounds now below. Then she saw the corpse just swinging slightly in the breeze.

Betty was grateful she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Gregory may have been intact but he was hanging, a deeply unsettling sight. Without a word, she joined the three.

“What do you think, Walter?” Sister asked her Joint Master. “He’s been dead since Christmas Hunt.”

Walter peered intently at the body. He was wise enough not to touch it.

“Preserved. Quite well.”

“Like embalmed?” Freddie blurted out.

“I can’t touch him. Ben would be angry at me and I do know better. With luck, there may be evidence on this body. But either he was embalmed or he was frozen.”

“Then why cut off his hands?” Betty shook her head. “This is the work of a madman.”

Freddie, voice low, replied. “Or someone who wants us to think just that.”

“Well, it does divert your attention.” Sister spoke as they turned, for Dewey was riding with Ben, now at the top of the farm road. Both men stopped for a second, then rode on.

Ben immediately called his forensics team, weekend be damned. Then he asked to be patched through to the medical examiner, who was at her daughter’s ninth birthday party.

“Get the body here by tonight. We’ll examine it Monday.”

“Slow time?” Ben asked.

“Yes, but this is so unusual, best we get to it as fast as possible.”

After a few more words, Ben clicked off. “Who found him?”

“Weevil and Tootie hit the ridge first,” Sister said.

“I know this is difficult, but if you can, see if you can get as close to your track as possible. When my team arrives I want every inch of this ridge scrutinized as well as the trail up and down. And do me another favor. Wait, after you put the horses up, because this will take time to assemble everyone. If you will, show them the way up.”

Sister and the others rode down, Dewey in the rear as backup. Walter stayed with Ben.

Finally Betty asked, “Do you think we’re in danger?”

“Only if you get too close to the killer,” Freddie sensibly said.

“You have to be nuts to do something like that. Cut off hands, throw them about, then hang the corpse. Nuts.” Betty exploded.

“I don’t know,” Sister’s voice, clear, called back. “Dewey, what do you think?”

“I agree with Betty. Makes no sense.”

“But it does to whoever is behind this,” Freddie said.

“Isn’t that what those crime shows determine? What seems crazy to us is logical to the killer,” Sister replied.

“Maybe.” Dewey sounded unconvinced. “But logic can be part of someone gripped by an obsession. It’s still lunacy.”

“Consider that Gregory Luckham is dangling from the hanging tree. This is where justice was carried out in colonial times. Criminals were executed here by hanging.”

No one said anything, but she opened a door, if ever so slightly.