Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

CHAPTER 14

Comet, hunting on the Bancroft property, heard the trailers rumbling down the long gravel drive, then they rattled through the covered bridge at After All Farm. The covered bridge amplified the sound.

Comet, like all The Jefferson Hunt foxes, knew when a hunt was to occur. Not that he kept a fixture card in his den. He didn’t need one. Every time Sister’s trailers left the stables and the kennels, it was hunt day away from the farm. When humans wore their kit, hounds yipped with excitement in the kennels, and Sister’s trailers stayed put. The hunt would be at the farm.

The only days that confused this healthy gray fox were when the trailers left the farm to go all the way around to Foxglove Farm on the other side of Soldier Road. If they had ridden up over Hangman’s Ridge, then down into the often swampy meadow below, they’d cross Soldier Road and wind up at lovely Foxglove Farm, owned by Cindy Chandler. Sometimes they’d strike a line and then the red Foxglove fox would cross Soldier Road, the meadow, Hangman’s Ridge, and shoot to Sister’s house. So he was on Comet’s territory. For whatever reason that fellow loved her house and had various ways to wiggle under it. Once the Foxglove fox leapt into an open window of the gardening shed. What a mess. The red fox was just thrilled with the damage he’d caused. Comet was less thrilled. What if it made Sister mad at all the foxes? He liked his treats she left out.

On this Tuesday, February 11, Comet felt confident he would be far ahead of hounds should Shaker cast down Broad Creek. He was three-quarters of a mile from the bridge. He listened intently. Human babble fascinated him. They uttered so many sounds; some high, some low, and their laughter especially fascinated him. Big bellow laughs, little titters; some people laughed like woodpeckers, rat ta tat tat. While Comet was too far away now to detect the titters, the low guffaws, he could hear big laughs and he could always hear a high-pitched sound. Thank God for the horn. He always knew where Shaker was.

Comet, full, for hunting had been successful, sat until no more trailers passed through the covered bridge. The youngsters in the pack, once scent was found, usually ran right up front. While this was not a blindingly fast pack, it was fast enough so that Comet, who owed much of his health to Sister’s feeding and worming program, plus the fact that as a youngster he’d been trapped and given his seven-in-one shots, headed for Pattypan Forge. He, too, was fast, also having the advantage of more nimbleness. If they did pick up his line once the pack reached Pattypan Forge, they would become confused for a time.

Aunt Netty kept an immaculate den in the old forge. Occasionally, Uncle Yancy would visit. The old stone building—the stones square-cut, quite large—held scent inside on a moist day. Today, at nine-thirty, the mercury had just nudged up to 34°F and clouds hung low, ranging in color from dove gray to charcoal. The rawness in the air promised snow flurries. Scenting would be pretty good, so why not throw them off early?

Pattypan, abandoned for close to a century, had the additional advantage of being overgrown. The place was full of rabbits, always a plus in a fox’s mind, and other foxes did come around thinking the same as Comet: game. Crows would hang around and a medium-sized barn owl lived up in the rafters, keeping to himself. He loathed commotion and if Aunt Netty and Uncle Yancy screamed at each other, this foxy fellow would tell Bitsy, the screech owl who nested in a tree hollow at Sister’s farm. This was like telling the town crier as Bitsy, believing in a free press, more or less kept every animal current with the latest gossip.

Shaker blew two short toots that meant “Pay attention.” This was really for the humans. Comet knew it was time to move on. He trotted along Broad Creek while a downy woodpecker clinging to a tree trunk swiveled his head to see the gray ghost below.

“Morning,” the bird called.

“Morning,” Comet called out. “Good eats?”

“Tree’s a supermarket.” The downy pecked to prove his point, extracting a cocoon that Comet could see in his beak.

As Comet moved on, Shaker moved out with twelve couple of hounds, a decent number, although Sister especially loved those days when she’d ride out with thirty couple. The sound remained in one’s memory forever. But twelve couple allowed youngsters—and he had half his pack as young entry and second-year entry—to step up to the plate. One must develop future leadership among hounds the same as among humans. Both the Senior Master and the huntsman believed this and planned for it.

Betty, per usual, rode on the right, Sybil on the left, while Tootie rode in the field with Felicity, who took Tuesdays off. The two had been classmates at Custis Hall, the prep school. Felicity needed a break from her curious, active child. The two school friends had ridden together all four years at Custis Hall. Felicity became pregnant, graduated, then married, a surprise to all. Gray, Ronnie, Xavier, Phil, Mercer, Kasmir, his old school chum, High Vijay, the Bancrofts, Walter, Ben Sidell, Ed Bancroft, the Sheriff, and Freddie rode out, along with a guest this Tuesday. The guest, a drop-dead gorgeous lady in her early thirties, perfectly turned out in ratcatcher, was visiting from North Carolina. The clothes for informal days were usually a tweed jacket, a tie, or colored stock tie. One had more room for personal expression wearing ratcatcher. Many men in the field fervently hoped this would be the first of many visits from Alida Dalzell. Plus she rode a stunning, 16H flea-bitten gray Thoroughbred/​Quarter Horse cross. They were a vision.

Shaker headed down Broad Creek. The draw intensified the moisture. Even during one of those awful Virginia dry spells, awful when they occur during hunt season and not especially wonderful during hay season either, the scenting along creeks or around ponds and lakes might hold, if ever so briefly. Today a carpet of enticing odors curled into hound nostrils: rabbits, two bobcats, a gopher, a few minks, turkeys, turkeys, turkeys, and the lovely powdery scent of a woodcock.

“Oh, this is sweet.” Giorgio closed his eyes.

“Bobcat. We’ll get a fox soon enough,” Cora counseled.

Dragon, who would jostle to take the lead, only to be put in his place by bared fangs and a snarl from Cora, smarted off. “Giorgio, you wouldn’t know a bobcat if he bit you in the ass.”

“No, but you’d know if I tore into yours.” Cora shot him a dirty look, which the other hounds called “the freeze.”

Dreamboat, emboldened with each hunt now, nose to the ground, concentration intense, moved faster. Then he trotted. Finally, sure, he lifted his head, let out a deep call, “Gray fox.”

As though someone tossed a match into a tinderbox, whoosh, everyone spoke at once, everyone on.

Shaker blew “Gone Away.” He and Hojo negotiated thick tree roots that had risen out of the ground with the freezing and thawing.

Some of those roots were best to jump, which the horses determined to do, to the surprise of some of their riders.

Many people in the hunt field like to set up for a jump, always a good idea, but terrain in central Virginia throws curveballs. Sit deep and take what comes. If you’re tight in the tack, you’ll be fine. Easier said than done, of course, and already two people popped off their mounts like toast.

Bobby Franklin, very glad he had Ben Sidell back there who took care of stragglers, kept the last horse in First Flight clearly in sight.

A light snow now fell like a lace curtain, adding to the extraordinary beauty of the wide creek, ice edging the sides, the conifers dusted with white.

Well ahead, Comet had taken the wide right path through the woods to Pattypan Forge. Hounds followed and just as the wise fox planned, hounds threw up at the forge. There were too many smells, including fox.

Threw up is the proper term for losing scent and literally throwing their heads up.

Aunt Netty, in her den inside, suffered no worries.

The pack blasted into the forge.

“Over here. Over here.” Tattoo dug so fast at Netty’s den that two rooster tails of dirt flew behind his front paws.

Diana stopped for a moment. “Tattoo, she’s an old nag. Let’s find someone who’s running.”

From the anteroom of her den, Aunt Netty cursed, sounding like a wail from a sepulchre. “How dare you, you domesticated toad poop!”

This so shocked Tattoo that his jaw dropped open. He stopped digging.

“Come on, Tattoo,” Twist, his littermate, advised.

Shaker and the field held up outside as hounds worked inside. The riders sported a mantle of light snow.

“I’ve got the line,” Pansy cried.

“I’ve got a hot one, red, red hot,” Dreamboat bellowed.

Cora checked first Pansy’s line, then Dreamboat’s. Hounds knew, thanks to all their schoolwork, that one should stay on the hunted fox but a red-hot line is a red-hot line. Cora thought to hell with it. They’d chase the hotter line.

“Come on!” The fabulous hound rallied the others, for the pack was just about to split.

Already flying out of the back of Pattypan Forge, Dreamboat was now followed by the entire pack. The underbrush made the going rough and the humans had to run upwind, southerly, that day, on a narrow deer trail until it intersected with a somewhat wider riding trail, not very wide but wide enough to gallop without smashing your kneecaps.

Sister, on her beloved Rickyroo, eleven years old, almost twelve, knew that sure-footed though he was, the snow could be slippery and it was falling faster. Hunting in a falling snow, one of life’s great pleasures, made her glad to be alive.

Most hunts wouldn’t go out in a deep snow because it’s not sporting. The fox can’t run well should he be out. While hounds have to surf a deep snow, they plow faster than the fox. Hard on the horses, too. On the other hand, if a crisp coating lays on even a deep snow, a fox can fly along, whereas hounds slip and slide, break through, cutting their pads. But this snow, flakes large, twirling medium to fast, ground now covered with a thin sheet, this was perfection.

Ducking a few low limbs, Sister lost sight of Shaker but thanks to a blast on the horn every now and then, she knew where he was headed. In a quarter of a mile, the bridle path intersected two roads making a turkey’s foot. Right, left, or center, those were your choices.

Which one would the fox make? Uncle Yancy, ever so clever, didn’t bother with the path. He slid under thick brambles, and catapulted onto the ruins of an old stone wall to run atop that for a bit. Hounds struggled in the nasty undergrowth but once they reached the stone wall they hopped up, as had Uncle Yancy. All twelve couple tried to get atop the stones, but some had to settle for walking beside it.

Walking frustrated them because they knew the older codger was gaining ground.

Betty, on the right, could no more get into that thick cover than anyone else. Tempted though she was to dismount, she knew better. Unless someone is in trouble, stay up, always stay up. Sybil, on the left side, had a little bit easier time as she was on a deer trail with fallen trees. Fortunately the crowns of the blown-over trees had smashed into other trees so she jumped tree trunks, easy to do on Kingston, bold and smooth.

Sister emerged onto the turkey-foot intersection. Shaker to her left headed fast toward the Lorillard place. Hounds, all on, hit the “hallelujah chorus.”

Edward and Tedi rode in Sister’s pocket with Kasmir not far behind. They allowed a decent distance but were right up there. Sister had offered the guest, Alida Dalzell, the honor of riding up with her but the beautiful woman demurred, saying she didn’t want to slow down the Master.

As it was, Alida wouldn’t have slowed down anyone but she didn’t want to seem to take advantage and the only person she knew in the field was Freddie Thomas. As she had invited her, Alida rode with Freddie. As some riders were slowed a bit by the snow, the two women began to creep forward. This was not a violation of protocol. For those men whom they passed, this was a delicious experience; Alida, up in the irons, rode at such pace, her rear end well out of the saddle.

Little by little, Sister and First Flight were closing the gap between themselves and the hounds, whom they couldn’t see but could sure hear. Ahead of them, Shaker could now see his tail hounds. Betty, finally able to move along, had crossed the turkey foot, taking the straight road where she knew a narrow trail would cut off toward the Lorillard place. Sybil wove through the debris-strewn path to emerge at an old, still-sturdy shed. If she kept going, she would shortly reach the edge of the front pasture at Sam’s farm.

Just as Sybil galloped to the front pasture, Uncle Yancy shot into it, going straight for the graveyard, which rested a distance from the house.

Sybil took her hat off, pointed Kingston in the direction of the fox, and as the pack and then Shaker came into sight, she shouted “Tallyho!” That done, she quickly hopped the fence into the pasture, veering wide left, hoping to get up to the side of the pack as she, like Shaker, ran behind.

Jumping a tiger trap into the pasture, Betty had heard the “tallyho” so she kept to the right with extra vigilance. The last thing she wanted to do was turn the fox, nor did she want to lose the pack.

Shaker, on the road side, flew around to the right, jumping the same tiger trap that Betty had just cleared. Seeing this from a distance, Sister headed straight for it once she, too, got off the road.

By now Uncle Yancy had glided over the neat graveyard stone enclosure, reached his den, and ducked in. No one saw him duck out to creep to the Lorillard house, where he slipped under the back mudroom, climbed up into it, pushed back the rags, and jumped from one thing to another until he was on the top shelf, warm, a bit winded, and quite happy. Really happy, since he could hear the hounds blabbing outside.

The pack leapt into the old graveyard and found the den. Not wanting to jump into what he considered sacred ground, Shaker dismounted, throwing the reins over Hojo’s neck. Perfect gentleman that he was, Hojo watched the proceedings inside the graveyard.

“Leave it. Leave it,” Shaker ordered.

One doesn’t want hounds digging at graves, even if there is a den there. The huntsman blew “Gone to Ground.” As he did so, Mercer—unable to control his excited horse, Dixie Do, who pulled like a freight train—passed the Master. Sister and the field watched the show.

Dixie headed straight for Hojo, came close to the patient huntsman’s horse, swerved for a moment, and took the low stone wall to stop hard in front of Shaker. That Mercer stayed on was a miracle.

“I do so apologize, Shaker.” Mercer couldn’t say much else.

“Happens to us all one time or another. Best you apologize to the Master.”

One never passes the Master.

Mercer turned the now tractable Dixie Do toward the field, Sister in front, the whippers-in to the left, removed his cap, and bowed his head.

A moment’s silence followed, then Mercer quipped, “Sooner or later we’ll all end up here.”