Hotspur

CHAPTER 14

At six-thirty on the morning of Saturday, September 7, a light easterly wind carried a fresh tang in the air, a hint of changes to come.

A hardy band of twelve gathered at the kennels in these last moments before sunup. Sunrise was 6:38 on this day. The first day of cubbing excited the hard-core foxhunters, the ones who would follow hounds on horseback or on foot, in cars, in rickshaws if there was no other way. For this happy group, hunting with hounds was a passion right up there with the ecstasies of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Those hounds waiting in the draw run, a special pen to hold the hounds hunting that day, leapt up and down in excitement. Those not drawn wailed in abject misery.

Not to go out on the first day of cubbing was no disgrace to a hound. Only a foolish huntsman or master would stack the pack with young entry. Each day of cubbing, like each day of preseason football, different young hounds would be mixed with different mature hounds. By the end of cubbing, huntsman and master would have a solid sense of which youngsters had learned their lessons and which older hounds had become a step too slow.

The older, trusted hounds understood this training process, but that didn’t mean they wanted to stay behind even if they knew perfectly well they’d be out next time. No good hound wants to sit in the kennel.

Atop her light bay with the blaze, Sybil Fawkes’s quiet demeanor belied her inner nervousness. She had accepted the position of honorary first whipper-in, the honorary meaning no remuneration, with excitement and fear. She could ride hard, but she wasn’t sure she could identify all the hounds even though she’d come to the kennel almost every day since the end of July. Doug had spent a lot of time with her before leaving to carry the horn at Shenandoah, but she was still nervous.

August had drained Sybil. It hadn’t just been the heat. The ceremony at Nola’s grave, although restrained, even beautiful, had hammered home her loss.

She found herself snapping at her boys. Ken, sensitive to her moods, kept the kids busy.

Sybil’s restorative time proved to be with the hounds. Working with the animals, with Sister and Shaker, gave her some peace. Their focus on the pack was so intense, it crowded out her sadness over Nola.

When she worried that she wouldn’t make a good whipper-in, Sister encouraged her, telling her she’d make mistakes but she’d learn from them.

“I’ve been hunting since I was six and I still make mistakes. Always will,” Sister had said.

Betty Franklin, who had been second whipper-in for over a decade, could have filled the first’s boots but she had to work for a living. There might be times when she couldn’t show up. Also, Betty had limited resources and one daughter to get through college. She couldn’t afford the horses. She owned two fabulous horses, Outlaw and Magellan, and Bobby owned a horse. They couldn’t afford any more horses, which depressed Betty.

But she was anything but depressed this morning. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach just as the real things were awakening to soft light.

Sister, too, had butterflies. Opening Hunt would mean the beginning of the formal season, but this, this was the true beginning and she so wanted her young entry to do her proud.

As Crawford and others had predicted, nothing more was learned concerning Nola’s death. The murder crept into conversations but not with the earlier frequency and intensity.

Tedi accepted the offer of a sip from Crawford’s flask as she sat on Maid of Honor, her smallish chestnut mare, who possessed a fiery temper—but then, she was a red-head. Tedi’s salt sack, an unbleached linen coat worn in hot weather, hung perfectly from her shoulders, a subtle nip in at the waist. Salt sacks usually hang like sacks, but Tedi, a fastidious woman, had hers hand-fitted.

Every stitch of clothing on her body had been tailored for her over forty years ago. Good hunting clothes pass from generation to generation. A few fads might appear— such as short hunting coats during the seventies and eighties—but hunters soon return to the tried and true. A longer skirt on a hunting jacket protects the thigh. Sensible. Everything must be sensible.

Cubbing granted the rider a greater latitude of personal expression in matters of dress. One could wear a tweed jacket with or without a waistcoat depending on the temperature. It was already sixty degrees, so everyone there, seasoned hunters, knew by the time hounds were lifted they’d be boiling in a vest. Their vests hung back in their trailers.

People wore white, yellow, pink, or oxford blue shirts with ties. Their britches were beige or canary, as no one wore white in the field on an informal day.

Betty wore a pair of twenty-year-old oxblood boots; their patina glowed with the years. Her gloves were also oxblood and she wore a thin, thin navy jacket with a yellow shirt and a hunter green tie.

Bobby, after asking the master’s permission, rode in a shirt only. It wasn’t truly proper, but he was so overweight that the heat vexed him especially. He wore a lovely Egyptian cotton white shirt and a maroon tie with light blue rampant lions embroidered on it. He’d worn the same tie for the first day of cubbing for the last fourteen years. It brought luck.

Shaker wore a gray tweed so old, it was even thinner than Betty’s navy coat. His brown field boots glistened. His well-worn brown hunting cap gave testimony to many a season. He carried the cap under his arm. Protocol decreed he could put on his cap only when the master said, “Hounds, please!”

While spanking-new clothes were beautiful, there was a quiet pride in the faded ones, proof of hard rides over the years.

Edward Bancroft, more reserved and preoccupied of late, roused himself to be convivial. Ken Fawkes, also wearing a salt sack, offered his flask to one and all. He beamed with pride at his wife and counseled her before they set off that morning that cubbing would be more difficult than the formal season because hounds weren’t yet settled. If she could get through cubbing, why, the rest of the season would be a piece of cake.

Ronnie Haslip rivaled the impeccable Crawford in the splendor of his turnout. His gloves, butter-soft pale yellow, matched his breeches. He wore Newmarket boots, the height of fashion for warm days but rarely seen because they wear out much faster than all leather boots. The inside of the boot and the foot was either brown or oxblood leather, but the shank of the boot was made of a burlaplike fabric lined in microthin leather. A rolled rim of leather topped off these impressive boots. Ronnie even wore garters with his Newmarkets, something rarely seen now.

His shirt, a pale pink button-down, fit him just right as did the dark green hunting jacket he’d had made while visiting in Ireland. A deep violet tie secured by a narrow, unadorned gold bar was echoed by a woven belt the same color as his tie. His black velvet cap, tails up since he was neither a master nor a huntsman, had faded to a pleasing hue that declared he knew his business. He carried an expensive applewood knob end crop with a kangaroo thong.

All the riders carried crops. Usually they saved the staghorn crops for formal hunting, but in Betty’s case that was all she had. It wasn’t improper to carry the staghorn while cubbing, really, it was just that once formal hunting started, riders were locked into a more rigid sartorial system. Then you had to carry the staghorn crop or none at all. Though they were rarely used on the horses, they proved useful. One could lean out of the saddle and hook a gate or close it with the crop. The really dexterous might dangle the staghorn end over their horse’s flank and pick up a dropped cap or glove. This was always met with approval.

Today, Sister carried a knob end crop, an old blackthorn, perfectly balanced with a whopping eight-foot, twelve-plaited thong topped off by a cracker she made herself out of plastic baling twine. When she popped her whip it sounded like a rifle shot.

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright; she couldn’t wait to get going. As the wind came out of the east, there was no point in fiddle-faddling, she’d cast right into it. Hit a line fast and go.

The youngsters had shone at their foxpen outings. She wasn’t worried that they needed to head downwind for a bit to settle. Anyway, the temperature would climb quickly. Off to a good start, a bracing run, then lift and bring everyone back to the kennels on a high note.

Positive reinforcement worked much better than negative, in Sister’s opinion. Let the youngsters feel they’ve done well and they’d do even better next time.

Her old salt sack with its holes carefully patched, her boots repaired that summer by Dehner, a boot maker in Omaha, her mustard breeches and light blue shirt all suited her. She wore a bridle leather belt, matching her boots, peanut brittle in color. She looked exactly right, but she wasn’t showing off.

Jane Arnold was a stickler for being correct. One intrepid soul mentioned to her that another hunt was allowing members to cub in chaps.

“Oh, how interesting,” she replied, and uttered not another word.

That was the end of that.

Being superstitious, she pinned Raymond’s grandfather’s pocket watch to the inside of her coat pocket as she always did. John “Hap” Arnold, a hunting man, had a pocket watch devised wherein the cover had a round glass center so he could see the arms where they attached to the center of the watch. The outside rim of the watch, gold, had the hours engraved on it. She could see enough of the slender blued hands to make out the time without popping open the top. This cover came in handy should Sister smack into a tree or take an involuntary dismount. And she never had to open the watch in rain. As Bobby had his good-luck tie, she had her good-luck watch.

On the right rear side of her saddle hung couple straps in case she had to bring back tuckered-out hounds early. However, on the High Holy Days—Opening Hunt, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Hunts—she carried a ladies’ sandwich case, instead of couple straps, with the rectangular glass flask inside the case. When visiting other hunts she also carried this case. A small silver flask filled with iced tea rested in her inside coat pocket.

It took years to conquer the minutiae of hunting attire, ever a fruitful source of discord. An elderly member might fume that few wore garters anymore. A younger member would respond that boots stayed up quite well by themselves when bespoke by Dehner, Vogel, Lobb, or Maxwell.

Someone else would be horrified if a lady wore a hunt cap rather than a derby, and no one really wanted to say what they thought of chin straps. No master could disallow them, but behind the users’ backs they were always called “sissy straps.”

Ladies had been known to tear one another’s veils off during formal hunting when one disdained the concave of another lady’s top hat. One of the worst arguments Nola ever got into the last year of her life occurred when she sniffed that Frances Gohanna, soon to be Frances Assumptio, had a dressage top hat perched on her head instead of a true hunting top hat. Exactly why these trifles inspired such emotion amused Sister, but then foxhunters were passionate by nature.

Even Golliwog, viewing the assembled from the vantage point of the open stable door, was excited and took note of how the people were turned out. Once hounds were loosed she would take the precaution of repairing to the hayloft to watch the hunt. Occasionally an errant hound youngster would wander into the stable, and Golly loathed all that whining and slobber.

Sister, on Lafayette, rode over to Shaker. “Wind’s picking up. I know we didn’t want to run into After All, but we have two miles until their border. Best to cast east now.”

Shaker, too, had noticed the shift. Their original plan was to strike north and hunt toward Foxglove Farm. Then he’d swing the pack around to the bottom of Hangman’s Ridge and hunt through the woods on the west side of the old farm road right back to the kennels. Given their hound walks all summer this territory would be familiar to a youngster if he or she became separated from the pack. The last thing either of them wanted to do was have a young one lost and frantic first time out.

Three couple of young entry were in the pack. Six to watch. The veterans were pretty foolproof.

“East it is.” His voice lowered.

Sister left him and rode to the small field. “Sun’s up. What are we waiting for?” She beamed.

“Here’s to a great season,” Crawford called.

The others murmured their agreement.

“Hounds, please,” Sister called to Shaker.

He slapped his cap on his head and Betty opened the gate. She then quickly swung herself onto Outlaw, as good a horse as was ever foaled if not the most beautiful.

“YAHOO,” the hounds cried.

Thirty couple of hounds bounded out of the kennel, spirits high, then waited for Shaker to blow a low wiggly note followed by a high short one that meant, “We’re on our way.” This was blown as much for the humans as for the hounds. Humans have a tendency to dawdle.

Hounds gaily trotted behind their huntsman, Sybil to their left and Betty to their right. Sister followed forty yards behind, leading the field as the rim of the sun, shocking scarlet, inched over the horizon.

Beyond the apple orchard they passed an old peach orchard, filled with delicious Alberta peaches. Tempting though it was to cast in there, both huntsman and master wanted to reach the sheep’s meadow between the farm road and the woods. That pasture’s rich soil held scent. On a good day, hounds might tease a line into the woods or back toward the orchards and the pace picked up accordingly. Not that hitting a scorching scent right off wasn’t a dream, it was, but sometimes, especially with young ones, a teasing scent helped organize their minds. You never knew with scent.

A black three-board fence marked off the meadow, a coop squatted in the best place to jump. Shaker on Gunpowder, a rangy gray formerly off the racetrack, effortlessly sailed over. His whippers-in had preceded him into the field. Sister could always push up a straggling hound.

“Noses down, young ones!” Cora commanded.

“I got something. I got something!” Trident, a firstyear entry, squealed.

Asa ambled over, sniffled, “Yes, you do, son. That’s a groundhog.”

The other hounds laughed as Trident, ears dropping for a moment, accepted his chastisement, then decided he’d follow Asa. He couldn’t go wrong then.

A sweetish, heavy, lingering line greeted Diana’s sensitive nose as she probed a mossy patch amidst the timothy swaying in the east wind. “Pay dirt.”

Although only in her second year, Diana, tremendously gifted, had earned the respect of the older hounds.

Just to be certain, Asa touched his nose to the spot. “We’re off.”

Both Diana and Asa pushed forward, Cora already ahead of them. Her nose, while not as extraordinary as Diana’s, was plenty good enough. Yes, this line was perhaps fifteen minutes old and, on the dew, the temperature in the low sixties, it would hold for perhaps another five or ten minutes in the hay. Then the rising sun plus the wind would scatter it forever.

Trident inhaled the light fragrance. “This is it! This is it! I’m really hunting. It’s not foxpen. This is the real deal.” He was so overcome, he tripped and rolled over.

Trudy, his littermate, laughed as she moved past him, her nose on the ground. “Showtime!”

Archie used to say “Showtime!” when hounds would find. It made everyone laugh, relaxing yet energizing them.

Hearing their former anchor hound’s phrase from this new kid made the others really laugh.

The scent grew stronger, snaking toward the woods. Whoever left it was in no hurry.

Whoever left it happened to be dozing on a rock outcropping about a quarter of a mile into the woods. Uncle Yancy, a red fox and the husband of Aunt Netty, filled with blackberries, peaches, and grain from Sister’s stable, needed a nap to aid his digestion. Uncle Yancy would frequently sit on the window ledge and watch TV at either Shaker’s or Doug’s cottage. Now that Doug had taken the horn at Shenandoah Valley Hunt, he wondered if anyone would be in there. He could see the picture better from Doug’s window than from Shaker’s. He liked to keep up with the world. Raleigh and Rooster never minded his curiosity, but that damned cat would torment him sometimes. She’d call out to the hounds, “Look who’s here, you lazy sots.” Then some offended creature would open his big mouth and Yancy’d push off.

He lifted his head from his delicate paws. “Oh, bother.”

Bitsy, on her way home from a very successful night, screeched, “They’ll be fast, Uncle Yancy.”

“Ha! The foxhound isn’t born that can keep up with me.”

Bitsy landed on a low maple limb. “Pride goeth before a fall.”

He stretched as the sound grew closer. “Not pride. Simple fact. If you want a good time, fly with me as I send these young ones in the wrong direction. Might even unseat a few humans, too. Why any creature would want to totter around on two legs is beyond me.”

“That’s why they ride horses. Then they have four,” Bitsy sensibly concluded.

“I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, some of them can’t stay on those horses, now can they? A weak and vain species, the human, but a few are quite lovely. Oh well”—he shook himself—“let’s cause as much mayhem as possible.”

He left the rocks, walked down to Broad Creek, crossed it, then climbed out on the other side. He shook off the water.

“I’m telling you, Uncle Yancy, these young ones are fast.”

“Bitsy, they aren’t supposed to run in front of the pack. They’re supposed to run as a pack.”

“That’s what cubbing is for, to teach them. And I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. If St. Just is about, he’ll make trouble.”

St. Just, king of the crows, hated foxes, especially red foxes, because Target, Uncle Yancy’s brother, had killed his mate. St. Just swore revenge on the whole fox nation and he had led one young red to his death last year.

Finally heeding the little owl, Uncle Yancy started trotting east.

“It’s getting stronger!” Trudy yelped as she approached the rocks.

Sybil, up ahead, spied Uncle Yancy slipping through a thick stand of holly. “Tallyho!”

Yancy decided to run after that. He broke out of the holly, crossed an old rutted path, dove into a thick thorny underbrush, then slithered out of that and headed for the edge of the woods.

“Over here.” Dasher, a second-year dog hound, littermate to Diana, reached the edge of the creek the same time as Cora. He splashed across the creek, then began whining because he couldn’t pick up the scent.

“Don’t be a nincompoop!” Cora chided him. “Do you really think a fox is going to walk straight across a creek? You go left, I’ll go right. And who’s to say he didn’t double back? Trudy,” she called to the youngster, “you and your idiot brother work that side of the creek.”

While hounds searched for the scent, Sister and the field quietly waited on the rutted wagon road.

Crawford had just unscrewed the top of his silver flask when Dasher hollered, “Here.”

“Drat.” Crawford knocked back a hasty gulp, motioned for Marty to have a sip, which she declined. As they trotted off he screwed on the cap, its little silver hinge ensuring it wouldn’t fall off. Not a drop sloshed on him even though he’d filled it to the brim. He was quite proud of himself.

“Stronger!” Cora, again ahead, spoke in her light, pretty voice.

Bitsy flew back to watch the hounds, then took off again to give Yancy a progress report. “They just ran into the thorns.”

“Damn,” Yancy cursed. These hounds were faster than he thought.

He broke out of the woods and into the easternmost meadow of Roughneck Farm, which was filled with black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace, and cornflowers; it hadn’t been weeded or overseeded in years. Sister thought of it as her wildflower experiment and was loath to return it to timothy, alfalfa, or orchard grass.

A hog’s-back jump loomed in the fence line. Sister and Lafayette sailed over it as the pace was picking up. She saw Betty, up ahead, already flying over the spanking-new coop that marked the westernmost border of After All Farm.

“This fox is a devil,” she thought to herself.

The hounds, in full cry now, roared across the wildflower meadow. Even Trident was on, his concentration improving.

Walter Lungrun, riding Clemson, an older and wiser horse, steered clear of Crawford, whose horse, Czapaka, a big warm-blood, occasionally refused a jump when he’d had enough of Crawford sawing at the reins.

New coops, not having yet settled into the earth, looked bigger than normal. Fortunately, Tedi and Edward painted theirs black. Unpainted coops seemed to cause more trouble than painted ones. Sister never knew if the trouble was with the horses or with the people.

As she trusted Lafayette with her heart and soul, she didn’t give this jump a second thought, landing just as she heard Shaker double the notes on the horn.

They were close, close to their fox, who must have tarried along the way.

Uncle Yancy, putting on the afterburners now, was shadowed by Bitsy, who was quite worried about him. She wished she hadn’t said “Pride goeth before a fall,” as she had no desire to see Uncle Yancy, everybody’s uncle, perish. Rarely did Sister’s hounds kill, but if a fox was ancient or sick, the hounds might dispatch it swiftly. In three seconds the quarry was dead, its neck snapped by the lead hound.

Bitsy tried to remember the last time there was a kill. It had been three years ago; one of the red tribe at the edge of the territory came down with distemper. Either way he was going to die because he refused to eat the medicines put out for him; he refused to go into one of the Havahart traps that Sister and Shaker put out in an effort to save him. He knew other foxes had been taken to the vet, but he did not trust any human, not even Sister.

“At least he died fast,” Bitsy thought to herself.

If she was worried, Uncle Yancy was not. Yes, the pack was faster. Sister had retired quite a few older hounds over the summer who now graced barns and hearths throughout the membership. These young ones had speed. Sister was breeding in more speed. He would have to tell the others.

In the meantime, he had to shake these damned hounds. He heard Cora’s distinctive voice, then Asa’s, both smart hounds.

“But not as smart as I am.” He chuckled as he raced for the covered bridge and trotted across it, dragging his brush purposefully to leave a heavy, heavy scent. Then he started up the farm road, covered in brown pearock. The Bancrofts spared no expense on those items they considered aesthetically pleasing.

He whirled around, 180 degrees, backtracking in his own footprints, then launched himself at the edge of the covered bridge and down into the waters of Snake Creek, which were high, muddy, and fast from all the rain. Swimming to the opposite bank proved harder than he’d anticipated.

“Hurry!” Bitsy blinked from atop the covered bridge.

Uncle Yancy made it to the far side. The swim had cost him precious time and tired him. He heard the hounds not a third of a mile away, closing with blinding speed.

“Damn them,” he cursed as he raced for the place where Nola and Peppermint were now buried.

The red fox with a little white tip on his tail leapt over the zigzag fence, crossed the twenty yards to the other side, and leapt over that. The earth, still soft from the digging and from the rains, showed distinct footprints marking his progress. Tedi had put up a zigzag fence until the stonemason, in high demand, could build stone walls around the graves.

A muddy trail followed him as he headed along the ridge, then turned in an arc back toward Roughneck Farm. He was more tired than he wanted to be. A groundhog hole, messy but under the circumstances better than nothing, had been dug right along the fence line between After All Farm and Sister’s wildflower meadow. He wasn’t going to be able to make the loop back to his den at this rate and he wished he’d paid more attention to Bitsy, faithfully flying overhead.

“Ouch!”

Uncle Yancy looked upward. St. Just had dive-bombed Bitsy, pecking her.

“You little creep!” St. Just pecked at Bitsy again, who was built for silent flight. She couldn’t maneuver as handily as the blue-black bird, but she was smarter. She flew low to the ground, right over Uncle Yancy. If St. Just tried for her, Yancy could whirl around and possibly catch the hated bird in his jaws, or even with his front paws.

St. Just knew better than to get close to a fox. He cursed Bitsy for helping the fox and squawked loudly. If only he could turn the hounds before they reached the covered bridge, he could get them on Uncle Yancy fast. But his outburst and his bad language offended Athena, who had just stopped over between the two farms. A nest of baby copperheads, born late but with a good chance of survival thanks to the abundance of game, were close to the large rock where they lived. She thought one would make a tasty dessert, and St. Just spoiled everything by scaring them back under their rock.

He offended her in principle. He didn’t know his place. Then, when she saw him go after Bitsy, her blood boiled. She lifted off the evergreen branch, her large wingspan impressive, and noiselessly, effortlessly came up behind the crow with four big flaps of her wings. She zoomed for him, talons down. He heard her a split second too late. As he turned to avoid the full impact of her blow, she caught him on the right wing. Enough to throw him off and enough to tear out feathers painfully.

“Out of my sight, peasant!”

Feathers flying, St. Just feared he might fall to earth with them. He pulled himself out of the dive, veering back toward the woods. Uncle Yancy, pursued though he was, would have made short work of this mortal enemy and then left the carcass to distract the hounds. Fresh blood was always distracting to a hound.

“Thank God you’re here,” Bitsy hollered, her high-pitched voice frightening four deer grazing below.

“Thank Athena.” The large bird hooted low, mentioning her namesake, then with a few powerful blasts she was over the wildflower meadow, heading to her home high in a huge walnut by Sister’s house.

Back at the creek, the hounds charged across the covered bridge in full cry.

Sister was about to lead the field across, knowing there’d be some fussing from the horses inside the bridge, when she heard a change in Diana’s voice. Wisely, for she trusted her hounds, she paused.

People panted. Horses’ ears pricked forward; they thought stopping pure folly, but they did as they were told.

Cora had overrun the line. Asa came up to Diana. He, too, changed his tune.

“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Trident thought he’d done something wrong.

“Pipe down and listen.” Dasher put his nose to the ground.

In a situation like this, Dragon was invaluable, for he was highly intelligent and had an incredible nose. But he’d been left back in the kennel since Shaker felt he had enough good hounds out and Dragon could be a handful. He thought the young ones, especially this T litter, might do better without Dragon today.

Little by little, Dasher, not as brilliant as his brother but methodical, worked his way back to the bridge. “I think he’s doubled back.”

Hounds milled around, then Cora said, “Well, there’s only one way to be sure. Dasher, go through the bridge; be careful, because some fool human will say you are doubling back on the line, and then Sybil, who’s new, remember, will rate you. But if he has doubled back, his scent will be stronger on the other side. Which direction, I don’t know. Take Diana with you.”

Both Dasher and Diana tore back across the bridge.

“Heel,” Ronnie Haslip whispered to Crawford, who nodded knowingly.

Technically they were right, but Sister did not call out to her hounds to join the others. Diana and Dasher were terrific second-year entry.

Sybil, forward of the bridge, turned to head back. Shaker sat right on the far side of the bridge, close to his lead hounds.

Dasher said low to Diana, “Here, I think this is fresher.”

She put her nose down and inhaled. “Yes, but we’d best be sure before we call them all back to us.”

They ran top speed and then were quite certain that the fox had headed up the ridge. “Yes! He’s here. Come on.”

Shaker, thrilled with these two, blew three doubling notes, sending the others on to them, claws clicking on the wooden floor of the bridge.

They emerged, cut hard right, and flew up the ridge. They all jumped the newly installed zigzag fence, running hard over Nola’s and Peppermint’s graves, headstones not yet carved.

Sister hesitated one moment, waiting for her huntsman to get ahead of her. She then rode up the ridge but wide of the new grave sites. Ken Fawkes, usually a strong rider, lost control of his horse, who wanted to follow the hounds directly. The big dark horse, almost black, catapulted over the first line of the zigzag fence, took one giant stride, and was over the second. Deep hoofprints now mingled with Uncle Yancy’s prints and those of the hounds.

The woods reverberated with the song of the hounds. Within minutes they were back over the fence line dividing After All Farm from Roughneck Farm.

Sister, knowing she had to head back to the new coop, turned and pressed Lafayette on. She cursed because the underbrush was thick. The leaves were still on the trees, and she couldn’t see her hounds in the thick woods. This was another reason cubbing was harder than formal hunting. If she didn’t hurry up she’d get thrown out and be way behind. She reached the new coop, got well over, then headed right on a diagonal across the open field. She could see the flowers and hay swaying and sterns swaying, too, where hounds pushed through, their voices in unison.

“He’s close! He’s close!”

And he was. Uncle Yancy slid into the groundhog hole, rolling right on top of the groundhog.

“I beg your pardon.”

The groundhog, large and unkempt, but jolly, said, “Care for some sweet grass?”

“Thank you, no.” Yancy couldn’t understand how any animal could be as sloppy as this fellow. “You know within a second those hounds will start digging at your main entrance.”

“Good. That will save me work.”

“I shall assume you have other exits should it come to that.”

“One of them right under a hanging hornet’s nest. Three feet long it is.” The groundhog, lying on his back, laughed just as Cora dove toward the hole and began digging frantically.

Uncle Yancy’s scent was so strong, it drove her wild. Red, moist earth splattered up behind her paws. Diana joined her at the edges, as did Asa and Dasher.

Trident asked his sister, “Are we supposed to do that?”

“I think you have to be first. There isn’t room for us to get in there, but I think we’re supposed to sing really, really loud.”

Trudy and Trident did just that and were joined by every hound there. Triumph!

Shaker arrived, hopped off Gunpowder, and blew the happy notes signifying that these wonderful hounds had denned their fox.

Sybil rode up, taking Gunpowder’s reins.

“I know my job,” the gray snapped, incensed that Sybil thought he might walk off.

Betty rode in from the opposite direction as the field pulled up not ten yards away.

Shaker took the horn from his lips. “He’s in there. He’s in there. What good hounds. Good hounds.” He grabbed Cora’s tail, pulling her out of there. She weighed seventy pounds of pure muscle. “You’re quite the girl.”

“I am!” Cora turned a circle of pure joy.

Then Shaker called each hound by name, praising their good work. He petted the puppies.

Sister rode up. “A fine beginning. Shall we call it a day?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Shaker smiled. “And did you see how Dasher and Diana came back across the bridge? That’s as nice a piece of work as I have ever seen in my life.”

Sister looked down at the two tricolor hounds. “Diana and Dasher, you have made me very, very proud.”

They wagged their whole bodies.

“Proud of you, proud of you.” Shaker again blew the notes of victory, then, without a grunt, lifted himself back into the saddle.

As they rode back toward the kennels, Ken, ashen-faced, came alongside his mother-in-law. “I am terribly sorry. I couldn’t hold him. I—”

She held up her hand. “Ken, to have the fox and hounds run across your grave is a good thing. No apology necessary. Nola would be laughing with the excitement of it.”

No one else said a word about it while the Bancrofts were around.

Uncle Yancy thanked his host and stuck his head up to make sure there were no stragglers.

Bitsy, in a pawpaw tree, giggled. “A near thing. And running over Nola and Peppermint like that.”

“That’s an unquiet grave,” the red fox said. Mask to the west, he headed for home.