Outfoxed

CHAPTER 35

Raleigh and Golly sat side by side at the kitchen window. Hounds, sterns up, eyes bright, walked behind Shaker. Doug, riding Rickyroo, walked in front of the hounds at a leisurely pace. Betty Franklin and Outlaw took the left flank. Cody took the right. Jennifer, a good rider, rode with her father, which pleased him.

As they rode off, light streaming in from the east, Golly said, “I’m glad I’m not a pack animal.”

“Me, too,” came the dry reply.

Golly, sitting on the window ledge and therefore eye to eye with the handsome Doberman, replied by curling her upper lip and emitting the smallest of hisses. Raleigh just laughed.

An old farm road snaked up to the top of Hangman’s Ridge. The pack reached this ten minutes after leaving the kennels. At the foot of the ridge, in the flat meadow once used for growing soybeans, trailers were bumper to bumper. People came from neighboring hunts wearing the individual colors of their hunts. Each rider from another hunt had called Sister to request permission to wear their hunt’s distinctive colors. Sister always gave that permission although some masters did not. In that case riders had to wear black coats and boots with no cuffs.

People came to follow on foot. It was going to be a big day thanks in part to the gorgeous weather—good for humans, not so good for scent.

As Sister rode by, men tipped their caps, top hats, and derbies. Ladies called out, “Good morning, Master,” as was proper. Ground followers also doffed their hats or waved. Lisa Bredell, Tinsley Wetherford Papandros, Isabel Rogers all mingled around, dying to find something to bitch and moan about. Each woman wore the perfect outdoor ensemble. Peter Wheeler sat on his truck like an elderly, beloved pasha holding court. When the hunt climbed the ridge his best friend, Granby Vann, a distant relative of Georgia Vann’s, hunting in a frock today, would drive Peter up. From the vantage point of the ridge they would be able to see much of the hunt. Most of the foot followers would stay high also.

Each horse, braided, hooves painted, tail plaited, felt the excitement. Their coats, especially the chestnuts’, caught the morning light, a thousand copper sparkles, whereas the dark grays gleamed like black diamonds. Dappled grays, flea-bitten grays, light grays, almost white, vied with blood bays, light bays, seal browns, and a few paints as to who was the best-looking horse that morning.

Children, barely able to breathe with anticipation, mounted their ponies. Adults heaved themselves up, the older and wiser ones bringing mounting blocks. Once up, a friend on the ground gave their boots a last-minute flick of the towel.

On they rode, up the hill, a pageant timeless in beauty, a passion older than the walls of Troy.

“Hold up,” Shaker gently spoke to his hounds.

Thirty couple, tricolor, medium-height American hounds carrying sculpted heads looked up at the huntsman and then back to the master.

“What beautiful children,” Sister said, beaming.

As the humans gathered round the hanging tree, Sister counted heads: 92 mounted and perhaps 130 on the ground. She couldn’t be sure, as more were climbing the hill. Thank god she’d ordered twelve cases of champagne for the breakfast, plus the usual bar. She laughed to herself because some of these people would rush to the bar with a siphon. How they lived to middle age or beyond amazed her.

Walter Lungrun was perfectly turned out. She smiled at him and he tipped his cap.

Fontaine wore a black weaselbelly, since he knew Sister loved the look. His white cords were set off even more by the rich, black coat. His top hat, smoothed and brushed, suited him.

Crawford wore a scarlet swallowtail with a white vest and his top hat was also perfect, with a scarlet cord attached to his coat. Men would kill for that scarlet cord, as they searched years for them. Most had to make do with a black hat cord, which strictly speaking was not proper. There was Crawford, his hat cord correctly in place, his boots direct from Lobb in London, costing him somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000, depending on the exchange rate. Everyone else got along with Dehners or Vogels, not cheap but at least under $1,000. But there was Crawford in the best boots money could buy in the world. His gloves, handmade by a glover also in London, were composed of more than thirty pieces of leather, matched, stitched so that he couldn’t feel the seams. No one in America even knew how to make such gloves anymore. His breeches, his shirt, his stock tie—all bespoke his wealth and, in his favor, his taste.

Martha, wearing a deep navy frock coat made by hand in Hospital, Ireland, surely was the best turned out of the ladies. Like her ex, everything on her body had been made expressly for her. Ravishing, she smiled both because she knew she looked good and because Crawford was courting her as though they were young again.

Once Peter Wheeler was in place, Sister stood in her stirrups. “Gather round.” As they moved up closer she looked at each person, acknowledging their presence. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here today. This is the one hundred and twenty-first time that the Jefferson Hunt has gone out, save for 1917 and 1918. We are thankful to be here yet again. I know of no sport as exciting. I know of no people quite as brave, occasionally foolish, and always gallant as foxhunters. The words ‘gallant,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘honor’ seem to have disappeared from our language and certainly from our behavior. Foxhunters may be the only people left who understand and live by those words. We are the last humans to practice chivalry. Therefore we wish our quarry a good day and may we never catch him. We wish our hounds a good day’s sport and we thank our horses for their spirit and their patience with us. I wish each of you a splendid day, a day you will forever remember with happiness and pride.” She paused. “Hilltoppers ride with Bobby Franklin. Field, come with me. Huntsman.” She nodded to Shaker, who placed his cap on his head, ribbons streaming down, as were Sister’s.

“Hounds ready?” Shaker asked.

“Yes!”

Smiling, Shaker rode down the side path of the ridge to the cornfield.

Crawford’s horse, Czapaka, hopped around a bit, as did others.

“I am the best-looking horse here,” Czapaka bragged.

“Shut up, asshole,” Cochise, Martha’s tough leopard Appaloosa, ordered.

Clemson, not the prettiest of horses but one of the wisest, Walter on board, simply said, “You have yet to finish a hunt the way you started it, buddy.”

The humans chattered, too, until they reached the bottom of the ridge, the cornfield beckoning.

The field halted. Doug was already on the far side, the north side of the cornfield. Betty took the left side but farther away, halfway up the ridge on the trail. Cody stayed in the meadows but was near the fence line.

“He’s in there.” Shaker’s voice encouraged the hounds. He lifted the horn, blowing a few notes.

“Yahoo!” Dragon plunged right in.

“You’re still wet behind the ears. You stay behind me,” Cora growled as she sped past him, the drying corn leaves rattling as she brushed them.

No sooner were all the hounds in the corn than Target trotted out the north side. Doug saw him, removed his cap, and pointed his cap and Rickyroo in the direction that the enormous red was traveling.

Not satisfied with being viewed by the first whip, Target moved away from the corn and brazenly sat down in the field.

A child in the rear of the field screamed, “The fox.” His mother, mortified, reached down, putting her hand over his mouth. “Sh-h-h. He’s too close to tallyho.”

By now the field had spied him. Happy with this, Target trotted away until Cora burst out of the other side of the cornfield, her lovely voice booming.

Archie, anchoring and still in the corn, replied, “I’m behind. Go on, Cora.”

“It’s him. It’s him.” Dasher was so excited, his nostrils full of hot, fresh fox scent, that he yipped like a puppy.

Target, about two hundred yards ahead of the strike hound, put on the afterburners. He scorched the meadow, jumped Fontaine’s coop, to the thrill of the field and the foot followers on the ridge. Then he ran hard through the woods.

The field followed Sister, surprised at the fast pace, for she didn’t think scent would be good but then she didn’t think they’d jump a fox and stay so close either.

Lafayette, smooth and always balanced, arced over Fontaine’s coop. Most everyone made it and those few who didn’t cursed under their breath, rode to the rear, and hoped to boot their horses over. Everyone did but one poor little lady, a picture of frustration. She gave up and joined Bobby Franklin as he leaned over to flip up the kiwi gate latch.

The music carried up to the ridge. Peter Wheeler stood on the back of his pickup and kept repeating, “Can you beat that? Can you beat that? Biggest damn red I ever saw in my life!”

Sitting atop the hanging tree, St. Just also watched everything. Usually he flew low over the red fox, cawing loudly for the hounds to close the gap. His jet-black feathers shone iridescent, his deep-yellow beak opened and closed, revealing his tongue, but he made little noise.

Target charged straight for Aunt Netty’s den. He lingered a bit too long in the field, showing off, and he needed to widen the gap between himself and Cora. He glanced back, seeing Dragon running neck and neck with Cora.

“I hate that hound,” he thought to himself, wishing the snake had killed Dragon.

Target ran through a rotted log knowing that would slow Cora and Dragon for a moment. Dasher, Diana, and other hounds were only a few paces behind the lead hounds.

This gave him just enough time to warn Aunt Netty as she reposed on the log fallen across the creek.

“Netty, go on now. They’re too close!”

She scrambled up the other side of the bank and headed off at a burning clip. Target ran halfway across the log, then jumped into the water. This was a slight variation on the plan but the only way to keep the hounds from the mouth of the den. He swam down the creek, then climbed up the bank into the opening.

As planned, the hounds, noses to the ground, streaked across the fallen log.

Blinding speed had served the slender, cagey Netty all her days. She put further distance between herself and the hounds as she zigzagged through the woods, emerging onto the back meadows still deep green.

A sizable hog’s-back jump punctuated the fence line, an old three-rail. Shaker cleared it right behind his hounds. Sister, fifty yards behind her huntsman, also sailed over.

As they thundered through the fields she heard hooves moving up too fast behind her.

Lafayette put back his ears. He slightly turned his head. “Bug off,” he warned Czapaka.

Crawford couldn’t hold the big Holsteiner.

Just as Czapaka’s nose drew even with Lafayette’s, Sister unleashed her whip, which she’d switched to her left hand. The thong and cracker snapped right in front of Czapaka’s nose. The warm-blood, startled, half reared, then stopped dead. Crawford slammed up on his neck, then slid off to the side as the entire field passed him.

Bunky Jenkins, riding tail this day, perceived that Crawford was fine. He didn’t stop to help him, which only made Crawford even more furious.

With reluctance, Martha turned back. He mounted up and then they had to fly to catch up because the pace accelerated. An upright jump, four logs stacked on top of the other, guarded the other side of the field. Cochise popped over and Czapaka with a whip and a spur followed.

They reached the back of the field. Fontaine had moved up right in Sister’s pocket, the most prestigious place in the field. Crawford choked on his fury.

Aunt Netty burst out from the woods, ran almost to Soldier Road, and then doubled back on her own tracks. Those people on the top of Hangman’s Ridge could see her as she doubled, then sped off first south, then zigzagged north as she headed toward the ridge. Then she veered back again. She knew the hounds were a quarter mile behind. She was pleased with herself.

Grace waited at the still.

“They’re in fine fettle today, Grace. Go now.”

“Cora first?” Grace had been told to fear Cora’s speed.

“And that arrogant young entry, Dragon. He’s fast. Very fast but fortunately he’s not very bright. Go on.”

Grace trotted toward the old farm path, then picked up her speed.

Cora stopped at the still. “Aunt Netty, I know you’re in there.”

“Go to the right. You’ll pick up Grace’s scent. We’ll make this a good day for Sister. After that, it’s business as usual.”

“To ground! To ground!” Dragon lifted his head back as he ran up and almost over Cora.

“Forget it.” Cora moved to the right.

“But I’ve put a fox to ground!” Dragon wanted to be a star.

“Scent is tough today, you fool. It’s warmed up. There’s a light breeze. The ground is drying out. Don’t spoil the plan.”

“I put a fox to ground,” he bellowed.

Lightning fast before the other hounds joined them, Cora leapt up and turned sideways like a marlin on a line. She crashed into Dragon. He hit the ground with a thud, the wind knocked out of him. Then Cora seized him by the throat and shook him. She dropped him and ran to the right, picking up Grace’s scent.

“Over here. Over here.”

The rest of the pack followed her as Dragon, choking, stood up, shook himself, coughed, then sullenly hitched up with the rest of the pack.

Sister and Lafayette leapt over a fallen tree trunk as a shortcut to the farm road. She’d heard Cora and then the pack turn. As she glanced behind her she saw her field strung out, the attrition rate rising.

“Stay with the hounds,” she thought to herself, and wondered when she’d had this long a run, this fast.

Grace ran back over Target’s evaporated scent, making a semicircle. She flew over Fontaine’s coop, not knowing the grays were in the trees watching her. She ran straight into the cornfield and then in a change of plan, because she was young and got confused, she blasted out the back of the cornfield with Uncle Yancy.

“What do I do?”

“Stay with me. There’s no den up here, Grace. You’ll have to run with me. You okay?”

“I’m not tired. I’ve only covered a half mile.”

Grace and Yancy skirted the fence line into the woods, a deep ravine in the far distance. Just to make life interesting, totally confuse the humans, they ran two large, loopy figure eights in the woods. The humans would think they were on grays until someone caught sight of them.

Lottie Fisher’s horse stumbled. Fontaine, who happened to be looking back, pulled up Gunpowder. Lottie, quite good-looking, brushed herself off as she checked her horse.

“You need company?” Fontaine reined in Gunpowder, lightly dismounting and removing his top hat. “Gets so lonesome in these woods.”

She blushed. “Thank you. I’m fine. He’s fine, too.” She patted the gelding’s sleek neck.

“How about a leg up, then?” He cupped his hand under her right leg. “One, two, three.” He pushed her up into the saddle.

Then he swung up on Gunpowder, top hat back on his head.

“Thank you so much, Fontaine.”

“The pleasure was all mine.” He grinned. “Shall we join them?”

Off they galloped on the last loop of the figure eight. The coop up ahead led into the meadow.

Lottie didn’t realize Fontaine was not behind her until she came right up on the rear of the first flight. She didn’t think a thing of it.

Together, Grace and Yancy dashed straight up the ridge, right to the hanging tree, dodging the screaming people, some of whom yelled “tallyho” to no avail. They scooted under Peter Wheeler’s truck.

Old Peter, on his feet, slapped his thigh with his hat. “Yip, yip yoo.” He belted out a rebel yell. “Yip, yip yoo. I never saw anything like this in my life. Two red foxes. Yip, yip yoo. Janie, where in the hell are you?”

Sister had just cleared Fontaine’s coop with Georgia Vann now riding in her pocket. But the entire field was feeling the effects of the long run. The staff horses, in fine condition, felt loosened up. But other horses who should have been conditioned but weren’t really began to labor, drenched in creamy white sweat.

Crawford stopped at the back of Hangman’s Ridge. “He feels lame.”

“Looks lame.” Martha confirmed his opinion.

“You go on. I’ll walk him to the trailers,” he instructed.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure. I’ll take the shortcut around to the trailers.”

“Crawford, you might want to stay in the meadow even though it takes longer. You don’t run the risk of fouling scent quite so much.”

He glared at her, for he hated to be told what to do. “Fine.”

“I’ll see you back at the trailers. Hope he’s okay.” She trotted off. Then, when far enough away from Czapaka, she broke into a canter.

Crawford thought all this talk about fouling scent was bullshit, hunters showing off. He headed straight into the shortcut.

Overhead, St. Just flew low, startling Czapaka.

By the time Sister reached the hanging tree she, as a show of respect, stopped to ask Peter what happened.

“Two! Two, Janie, and two different than the first one you flushed out of the cornfield. I never! I never!” Then he turned his aged body, pointed with his hat to the direction the two foxes ran, the hounds already on.

“Thank you. You’re my best whip.” She smiled, squeezed Lafayette, and they were off again.

She leaned back as she cantered, slowly, straight down the ridge. No time to fiddle with the old farm road and bypaths now. A few more people rolled onto the earth with a thud. Loose horses ran about, finally stopping to graze.

At the base of the ridge Sister swooped around, heading toward her house. A zigzag fence was to her left, a few old locust posts from the former fence still in place at the corners. She smelled the skunk as she neared the zigzag. She cleared the zigzag, started into the western woods then stopped. Hounds were all over the place like marbles rolling.

“Hold hard!” she shouted, raising her left arm.

People strained to pull back. They stood there, horses and humans panting like the hounds. The temperature inched into the low sixties. They were burning up and there had been not one check or slowing of pace for one solid hour.

Georgia Vann dropped her feet out of the stirrups, as did Walter Lungrun. They flopped onto their horses’ necks to relieve crying muscles. Even Martha, always in great condition, breathed heavily then leaned all the way backward in her saddle to stretch out.

The hounds, eyes watering, circled around one old locust fence post. Uncle Yancy and Grace snuggled down in the den, slowly making their way underground to the walnut, its canopy a cooling covering.

“Stay down. We don’t come out until the pack is off Patsy.” But as they inched toward the walnut they found Patsy still underground.

“What are you still doing here? You can’t go out now. You’d have to be as fast as Netty,” Yancy, upset, shouted.

“The pack split, Uncle Yancy,” Patsy explained.

“I hear them above us,” Grace said.

“Only half. I swear I was at the base of the walnut and I was ready to run but I heard a young hound go off back toward the east. Half the pack went with him.”

“If that damn little buster spoiled our plan, I’ll run him right out of the forest myself!” Yancy spat.

Sister waited. She heard half her pack. They rarely split and on a day like today such behavior would be quite unusual.

Cora milled around the fence post. “I can’t get through the skunk. Fan out again. Fan out, I tell you!”

The hounds obeyed.

Diana, timid, said, “I think I’ve got something here but it’s blood. Is it fox blood?”

Both Archie and Cora loped right over. They put their noses to the ground, then looked at each other. “Yes.”

“Follow me!” Cora commanded.

As Sister followed her hounds, running, but running more slowly, since Cora wasn’t certain about this just yet, she glanced around for the whips. Betty was off to her left. She could see Outlaw’s buckskin coat better than she could see Betty in her black frock. She saw no one on the right nor did she see Shaker. She couldn’t remember when they’d parted company. The pace, killing, would begin to tell on the older hounds.

As the field rode off, Grace, Yancy, and Patsy, one by one, crept out of the hole. They put their noses to the earth like hounds.

“Cora said blood.” Uncle Yancy frowned.

They continued moving on in a line.

“Here,” Patsy said.

The other two ran over, noses to the ground.

Yancy grimly picked his head up. “It is blood. Fox blood.”

“What do we do?” Patsy worried.

“Should we follow them at a safe distance?” Grace asked.

“No. Wait until we hear the hounds go back to the kennel. We’re close enough that we can hear. Then we follow this trail ourselves.”

Sister pushed on. The hounds, baffled again at a creek, milled about. She counted heads. Only fifteen people were left out of the forty-one that had ridden first flight. She wondered how many hilltoppers were left. She hadn’t seen Bobby Franklin since the hog’s-back jump at the high meadow. Even Fontaine was out of the run and she couldn’t remember when he’d dropped back.

She couldn’t worry about who was where now. Hounds picked up the scent again about thirty paces downstream. She found a crossing and over they went. As she stayed close behind she glanced at the ground, a habit born of tracking on difficult days. She, too, noticed blood. Not buckets of it but a steady drip, drip.

She reached the high meadow, took an in-and-out on the western side, then cantered across the meadow. She pulled up before the hog’s back.

Doug and Shaker dismounted and held up their hands. She saw a horse on the ground and then a human.

“Stay here. Martha, you’re in charge. Don’t anyone move.”

Crawford had just reached the last of the field. He, too, pulled up, Czapaka now sound as a dollar.

The hounds sat in the meadow. Some of them were lying down.

Sister dismounted. Gunsmoke, on his side, was barely breathing. Fontaine, face down, wasn’t breathing at all.

“He has no pulse,” Shaker simply said.

Sister didn’t bother to ask him if he’d called 911 on the tiny hand-held he carried. She knew that would be the first thing Shaker did.

“Doug, help me turn him over. Shaker, how long have you been here?”

“About one minute and a half.”

She and Doug rolled Fontaine over. No mark was on him save one hole on the left side of his chest. He was emphati-cally dead.

“Better call the sheriff.”

He flipped open the phone and dialed 911 again. As he gave precise directions to the sheriff’s department, Sister and Doug walked over to Gunsmoke. She felt his pulse. She checked his gums, which weren’t white. She pointed to a mark across his throat. She felt to see if his windpipe was broken.

Then she walked back to Lafayette and got her flask out of its case. She knelt down by Gunsmoke’s head, pouring port into her hand. She rubbed it over his lips. His eyes opened.

“He’s got the wind knocked out of him and he’s scared. We’ve got to get him up. Doug, give me your whip.”

She stepped back and cracked her whip, stinging the lovely animal on the flank.

“Oww!” He struggled up.

“Sorry, Gunsmoke.” She ran her hand along his neck, pressing her ear to his neck, low. “He’s all right, I think.”

She hadn’t realized that she was shaking slightly. She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Martha, take the field home and start eating breakfast. Now!”

Martha, smart, knew Sister needed everyone out of there before people panicked. She waved and turned the diminished band home.

Sister bit her lip. “Did you see anything or anybody?”

“No,” Shaker replied.

“No, but I heard a shot about fifteen minutes ago. I thought it was another whip,” Doug replied.

Betty rode out of the woods, beheld the spectacle. “Oh my God. What happened?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is he dead?”

“Yes,” Shaker said.

Betty, too, dismounted. She viewed the corpse with horror, her hand flying to her mouth as she realized he’d been murdered.

A whining drew Sister’s attention. Dragon walked up, dropping a dead red fox at her feet. The fox, too, had been shot. It was Reynard, Target’s son. A rope was still wrapped around his hind paws.

Sister patted Dragon on the head. The humans scarcely knew what to say.

As Gunsmoke caught his breath he shook a little bit.

Lafayette asked, “Did you see anything?”

“No. I took the hog’s back and I hit something. I don’t remember anything.” He cast his big brown eyes at his dead rider. “He was a strong rider, you know. Never gave a false signal.”

“I’m sorry.” Lafayette sympathized. If it had been Sister, he would have been crushed with sadness.

“Yeah.” Gunsmoke hung his head.

“I told you I’d get the fox,” Dragon bragged as he rejoined the pack. The other hounds stared at him, not daring to speak under the circumstances.

They all heard the sirens on Soldier Road. As the ambulance and patrol car turned onto the farm road the noise grew louder.

Overhead St. Just cawed and circled once. Vengeance was sweet.