The Hounds And The Fury

CHAPTER 3

The Blue Ridge Mountains stood like cobalt sentinels, reminding those who knew their geology of the time before human time when Africa and part of South America slammed into this continent during the Alleghenian Orogeny, pushing up what then were the tallest mountains in the world. These collisions had occurred between two hundred fifty million and three hundred million years ago, knocking into rock already over one billion years old.

Time’s unchallenged power affected Sister Jane. Each time she beheld the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, she paid homage to the forces of nature and to the brevity of human habituation: only nine thousand years by the Blue Ridge. At this exact moment, she was paying homage to the wisdom of the red fox, Vulpes vulpus.

Target, a healthy red in luxurious coat, had traveled too far from his den on After All Farm, the neighboring farm. He graced Sister’s Roughneck Farm. The Bancrofts, Sister’s beloved friends, owned After All. Hounds gaily shot out of the kennels at nine in the morning, skies overcast. Hunting in snow presented interesting tests for a pack of American foxhounds. The glowering skies, perfect for hunting, presaged well, but the snow would release scent only as the mercury climbed up from thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Today it stuck at thirty-eight degrees. Little snow melted. In the shade of towering pines and spruces, the mercury shivered below thirty-two degrees. But a fresh line is a fresh line, whether on dirt, sand, soft wet grass, or snow. A fresh line allows hounds to get on terms with their fox, and this morning highlighted both Sister’s and Shaker’s own good hunting sense. The hounds did the rest.

The small field, nine people, trotted behind the thirty-two couple of hounds gaily working what was called the wildflower meadow, a half mile east of the kennels, east of the sunken farm road that wound its way up to Hangman’s Ridge.

The two whippers-in, Betty Franklin and Sybil Bancroft Fawkes, rode at ten o’clock and two o’clock in relation to the pack. Shaker rode at six on the clock dial. They’d already moved through the mown hay field, which had been treated to a good dressing of fertilizer and overseeded before the hard frosts. The snow couldn’t have been better for the hay field.

On level ground the white blanket was piled to a foot. Wind kicked up deep drifts. Other spots had but two or three inches, thanks to the winds. Trouble was, you couldn’t readily tell the depth of the snow just by looking at it. If the temperatures remained low and another front passed through, this packing of snow would become the base for more powder. Weeks might pass before it melted in the deepest folds of ravines. Sometimes the snows in those places wouldn’t melt until April.

Sprays of white powder followed the hounds. Clods of snow popped off the horses’ hooves. The chill air brought color to everyone’s cheeks.

On Thursdays, Sister’s joint-master, Dr. Walter Lungrun, could join them. Tedi and Edward Bancroft, Gray Lorillard, Charlotte Norton, Bunny Taliaferro, Garvey Stokes, Henry Xavier (called “X”), and Dr. Jason Woods filled out the field this Thursday, December 29.

Diana, anchor hound, paused by a low holly bush. She inhaled deeply before moving to a dense bramble patch, which even without leaves was formidable.

A small tuft of deep red fur fluttered on a low tendril replete with nasty thorns. Large pawprints, rounder than a gray fox’s, marked Target’s progress. He’d meandered through in a hunting semicircle coming from the east.

“Target,” Diana called out.

Cora, the strike hound, Asa, Diddy, Dasher, and Dragon hurried over. All hounds put their noses to the bluish snow. Just enough eau de Vulpes, fresh on the surface, kept hounds moving. Their long wonderful noses warmed the air as it passed through.

As hounds, sterns waving, eagerly pushed this line, Sister passed the brambles. Her sharp educated eyes noted the tiny red flag. She observed the fresh prints, fur showing around the pad, preserved in deep snow as perfectly as fossils in stone.

“Close.” She thought to herself, echoing the assessment of her hounds.

Shaker still did not lift the horn to his lips.

“Let the young entry come up to the scent,” he thought to himself as four couple of first-year students joined the pack today, their very first hunt in snow.

Both Shaker and Sister liked hounds to figure things out for themselves, to be problem-solvers, a trait natural to foxhounds in general. It was one thing to call out in heavy coverts, or in ravines to give a toot just to let the hounds and whippers-in know where he was, but in open ground, he liked to be silent, with a word or two of encouragement to a youngster.

Both master and huntsman loathed noisy, showoff staff.

The “A” young entry looked ahead as the pack lengthened their stride.

Shaker smiled down at the gorgeous tricolored hounds and quietly said, “Hike to ’em, young ’uns.”

Picking up their pace, ploughing through the snow, within seconds they filled in the pack. As yet no hound opened, spoke to the line, but all those gifted noses kept down.

Cora, the richness of years and high intelligence to her credit, wanted to make certain the line was growing stronger and fresher before she sang out. She didn’t much like poking around old lines of scent when fresh ones could be found with diligent effort. Being head bitch as well as the strike hound, she occasionally needed to chastise younger hounds who, in their excitement and desire to hunt, opened too early. Sometimes they would babble on the wrong quarry. That would never do.

Dragon, proud, competitive, and desperately wanting to become the strike hound, pushed ahead of Cora and called out, “Come on.”

Cora, livid that the younger dog hound had challenged her authority, bumped him hard, knocking him in the snow. As she passed him she bared her fangs. Even Dragon, arrogant as he was, knew better than to start a fight during hunting and certainly not with Cora.

The pack opened, the young entry lifting their voices. Mostly they knew what they were doing, but sometimes the excitement of it overcame them and they’d “Yip, yip, yip” in a higher pitch than the other hounds.

Target, hearing the hounds, picked up his handsome head and looked around. The wind, light, blew away from him in a swirl. Once out of the shallow bowl he happened to be in at that moment, the wind would revert to a steady breeze from west to east. He realized he hadn’t smelled the hounds because of where he was. The little wind devils didn’t help. Being lighter than the hounds, he could run on snow with a crust on it, but this fresh powder slowed him. Target was not in an enviable situation.

Perched high in a two-hundred-year-old walnut, St. Just, king of the crows, peered down with relish. Perhaps this would be the day when he would watch Target die. He hated this fox with a vengeance, for Target had killed his mate.

Also observing the hunt was Bitsy, the screech owl. Curious and tiny, but big of voice, she was returning to her nest in the rafters of Sister’s barn when she heard the pack. Bitsy, social, liked to visit other barns and other owls. She’d enjoyed a night of feasting on various tidbits at Tedi and Edward Bancroft’s barn with a regular barn owl who lived there. That particular bird also lived for gossip, just like Bitsy.

None of the owls liked St. Just or any of the crows. Crows sometimes mobbed them in daylight. The battle lines were clearly drawn. St. Just and his minions feared Athena, the great horned owl. In fact, any animal with sense kept on the good side of the Queen of the Night. She could hurt you.

She wasn’t in sight, so St. Just, emboldened, began calling for his troops to rouse themselves. Within moments the edge of the nearby woods filled with cackles and calls. Those crows dozing in the walnut tree awakened, their bright eyes focusing on the laboring fox in the snow.

The sky filled with black birds circling the fox.

St. Just dive-bombed the big red, who snapped with his jaws.

Hounds were gaining, and the fox and crows heard Shaker blow one long blast followed by three short ones. Three times this sequence was played, which meant “All on.” All hounds ran on the scent.

To those riding behind, their bodies as warm as the tears on their faces felt cold, the hounds flying together on the blue snows was a sight they would always remember.

Target hoped he’d live to remember.

Bitsy flew wide of the crows to stop and assess the situation from the top of the recently vacated walnut. She flew back, and since she was an owl she could fly slowly, the marvelous construction of her feathers’ baffling silencing her approach.

“They’re a quarter mile behind.”

“Bitsy, help me,” Target pleaded as he ran. “See if the pattypan is open. Used to be an old den there.”

The pattypan, so named for its circular shape, had been a small forge built immediately after the Revolutionary War. After World War I it had fallen into disuse, although burrowing animals found it a wonderful place for a home.

The crows shadowed Target, the braver ones bombing him, slowing his progress. The edge of the woods, now one hundred yards ahead, could be his salvation, but he had to cross open ground—and therein lay the danger.

Cora could now see, dimly, the big red pushing through the snow, his brush straight out. Sister, too, could see him and knew from his brush that he wasn’t fatigued or beaten, but he was in peril. Target’s stride, shorter than the hounds’, was now, though not usually, a problem. He flattened his ears, his heart pumping, and he ran straight as an arrow.

A young male crow swerved right in front of him to slow him, but Target, quick as a cat, lashed out with his front paws and batted the bird down, then crushed its neck in his jaws. He bit into the body, kept the bird in his mouth, and trailed blood for ten yards before dropping the crow.

St. Just waxed apoplectic. “Kill him, Dragon! Kill him, Cora!”

The odor of fresh blood threw off even Cora for a moment. The intoxication of it slowed the pack down just a second or two, but that was enough for the fox to reach the woods.

“The old den is clear; you can get in.” Bitsy noticed the blood on Target’s jaws. “The old deer path is better going. Not as much snow on it.”

The sheltering pines, oaks, hickories, black birches—the whole rich panoply of eastern hardwoods and pines—did keep the snows lighter on the deer path. Target sped along.

As the field rode along the narrow path the thunder of hooves brought down the snow on the boughs and branches. Showers of iridescent spray slid down collars, stuck to eyelashes, and secreted themselves into the tops of boots.

Target spied the thick walls of the redbrick forge ahead. He lunged forward, skidding into an old woodchuck den whose entrance was at the outer wall of the forge. Over the centuries this den had developed into a labyrinthine maze worthy of a tiny minotaur. Safe, he flopped on his side to catch his breath.

Dragon vaulted through a long window four feet off the ground, the glass long ago pulverized. Diddy, Dasher, and Cora followed, Asa last over the windowsill.

“There’s got to be more denholes!”

Cora looked around. The interior was intact. “There are plenty of holes, Dragon, but he’s not going to pop out.”

“We can dig him out,” Diddy, young and excited, squealed.

Shaker blew three long notes, then called, “Come back.”

“Better go,” Asa advised as he also heard the rest of the pack baying, digging at the outside den entrance.

As the five hounds turned to obey their huntsman Cora lifted her head. She trotted over to another window where snow streaked across the floor. A raspberry, congealed lump the size of a tin of chewing tobacco, glistened. She drew close, inhaled deeply. “Human.”

Asa joined her, putting his nose close to the lump. “Indeed it is.”

Calling again, Shaker half-sang the words, “Come along.” He blew “Gone to Ground,” which should have excited them as well as the hounds outside.

“What’s this mean?” Diddy asked, puzzled.

Dragon, having given up on a promising denhole, now stood by Diddy’s side. “Don’t know. Someone could have cut themselves.”

“But there’s no footprints. And no scent.” Diddy, young though she was, already displayed formidable powers of logic, powers necessary to a good foxhound.

“Scent’s long gone by now.” Asa furrowed his brow, wrinkles deepening between his ears. “And the storm blew snow over whatever footprints there might be.”

Diddy inhaled again, her warm long nasal passages helping to release what scent remained. “I’ve never smelled human blood before. Since this is frozen, it must be very strong when it’s fresh.”

“’Tis,” Asa simply replied.

“Sure a big glop.” Dragon, too, was baffled.

“Human blood is never a good sign. Never.” Cora, voice low, turned from the blood against the snow to leap through the window, followed by the others.

Bitsy sat on the spine of the slate roof, almost as good as the day it had been put on in 1792. She’d watched everything, and her amazing little ears had picked up tidbits of the conversation inside the pattypan forge. St. Just then dive-bombed her.

“One of these days, Bitsy, I’ll get you!”

She blinked, ducked, then opened her little wings to scuttle through a window. St. Just flew in after her. She emerged on the other side only to be confronted with the whole angry mob of crows.

Shaker knew Bitsy. When Cora, Dragon, Asa, Dasher, and Diddy had rejoined the pack, he praised his hounds, patting them on the head.

“Bitsy, come down toward me.” Then he called to the little brown owl, badly outnumbered.

The hunt staff, as well as some of the other humans, recognized Bitsy, for her curiosity lured her into their company. She’d watch people disembark from the trailers, she’d sit on the barn weather vane, or she’d hang out in the big tree opposite the kennel door. Every now and then she’d emit the screech for which her type of owl was named. It could freeze one’s blood as sure as that frozen lump in the forge.

Bitsy, not as fast as the crows, kept her head down, which was pretty easy for her, and she flew to the edge of the slate roof closest to Shaker and the den entrance.

Target, inside, heard the commotion. If the pack hadn’t been out there he would have helped his friend. Under the circumstance, his emergence meant instant death.

The crows, wild with rage, ignored the human underneath them. They continued to attack Bitsy.

A huge pair of balled-up talons knocked one crow out of the throng. Then another. The people below, the horses and the hounds, looked up to behold Athena, her huge wingspread out to the full, her talons balled up like baseballs, wreacking havoc among the crows.

St. Just cawed loudly, then sped off, his squadrons with him. Two dazed crows lay in the snow.

Tinsel, a second-year hound, started for one.

“Leave it,” Shaker said quietly.

Tinsel quickly rejoined the pack.

“Never saw anything like that in my life.” Walter was gape-jawed.

“Me neither, but I know enough not to mess with a great horned.” Sister, too, was dazzled at the winged drama. She spoke to Shaker next. “Pick them up. It was a very good day for the young entry.” She smiled down at the pack. “Very good day for the Jefferson hounds.”

As they walked back, Sister motioned for Charlotte Norton to ride up to her.

The attractive young headmistress of Custis Hall, an elite preparatory school for girls, came alongside Aztec, Sister’s sleek young hunter.

“What a beautiful sight, the pack running together over the field.” Charlotte was radiant.

“Do you ever think of what we see? Things most folks never see. They see the tailpipe of the car in front of them.” Sister marveled at the patience of people for sitting in traffic as they shuttled to and from their jobs.

“We are very, very lucky. One of the things I try to impress upon the girls is how we have to work together to preserve farmland and wildlife. They’re receptive, for which I’m grateful.”

“You’re a good example,” Sister complimented her. “Do you ever regret being an administrator instead of faculty?”

“No. I really love being at the helm of our small ship.” Charlotte felt passionate about education, particularly at the secondary level.

Although many of her peers were climbing the ranks at major universities and some had already been named as presidents of smaller colleges, Charlotte felt fulfilled.

“Have you been having a good Christmas vacation?”

“I have. Carter had a few days off from the hospital. We drove up to D.C. to the National Gallery, to the Kennedy Center. I like being reminded of why I married him in the first place. He’s such fun, and I’m always intrigued by his observations. It’s that scientific mind of his.”

“I miss the girls.” Sister mentioned the Custis Hall girls who had earned the privilege of hunting with the Jefferson Hunt. “Tootie and Felicity e-mail me. Val has once.”

Bunny Taliaferro, riding instructor at Custis Hall, rigorously selected the toughest riders for foxhunting. The prettiest on horseback competed in the show ring, since there was high competition among the private academies. But the toughest, some of whom were on the show jumping team, foxhunted.

“They’re so buoyant, so full of life and dreams. They make me feel young again,” Charlotte beamed.

“Me, too, and I have more years on me than you,” Sister laughed. “Funny though, Charlotte, I feel younger than when I was young. I love life and I love my life. Sometimes, I feel light as a feather.”

“You look light as a feather. And you fool people. They think you’re in your fifties.”

“Now, Charlotte, that’s a fib, but I thank you. You never met my mother, but she grew younger as she grew older. Energy and happiness just radiated from her. Dad, too, but he died before Mother. She made it to eighty-six, and if she were alive today, the technology is such that she’d still be here. But I think of her every day, and I’m so glad I had that model. It must be difficult for people who grow up with depressed parents, or drunks or angry people. Makes it harder to find happiness because you haven’t lived with it.”

Walter Lungrun, riding behind them and a colleague of Charlotte’s husband, Carter, was head of Neurosurgery at Jefferson Regional Hospital. Riding with him was Jason Woods, a doctor in the oncology department; both men could hear them because the snow muffled the hoofbeats. “If you can’t be happy foxhunting, you can’t be happy, period.” Walter smiled.

“Hear, hear,” the riders agreed, toes and fingers throbbing with cold.

“Because of us.” Aztec believed riding cured most ills for people.

“Hound work, that thrills ’em,” Asa, the oldest dog hound in the pack, said with conviction.

As they neared the kennels Athena and Bitsy flew toward the barn.

“Mutt and Jeff,” Sister remarked.

Tedi Bancroft, her oldest friend, also in her seventies, laughed. “You know, there are generations that never heard of Mutt and Jeff.”

“Never thought of that—the things we know, silly things I guess, that younger people don’t know. Well, they have their own references.”

“References are one thing; manners are another. The boys still haven’t written their Christmas thank-you notes.” Tedi thought her grandsons lax in this department.

They really weren’t. She had forgotten how long it takes to become “civilized.”

“Tedi, they’re good boys.” Sister believed in the young. Her eyes followed the two owls. “I’ll tell you, girls, let’s stick together like Bitsy and Athena. A friend in need is a friend in deed.”

Up in the cupola, Bitsy, thrilled at her near miss and by what she’d heard inside pattypan forge, breathlessly relayed all to Athena.

“H-m-m,” was all Athena said.

“Let’s go back and see for ourselves.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Bitsy, disappointed that her big friend showed so little interest, chirped. “If someone hurt themselves, a deer hunter, say, it’s over and done with. But what if someone is”—Bitsy relished this—“dead.”

“When the snows melt we’ll know.” Athena found hunting small game or raiding the barns more fascinating, most times, than human encounters.

“Maybe.” Bitsy blinked. “Sometimes they never find them, you know.”

“Bitsy, did it ever occur to you that that might be a good thing?”

“Well, no,” the little owl honestly replied.

“Think about it.” Athena’s gold eyes surveyed all below. Then voice low, she sang, “Hoo, Hoo,” and paused. “Hoo, Hoo, Hoo.”

The small brown screech owl knew her large friend would not appreciate more questions, so she decided she would think about it. In time Bitsy would come to understand Athena’s idea that it might be better, sometimes, if humans didn’t know where the dead slept.

Before Sister could dismount, Dr. Jason Woods rode up to her. “Might I have a word?”

“Of course.”

Handsome, reed-thin, he spoke low. “You know, when I was a resident I whipped-in at Belle Meade.”

Belle Meade, located in Georgia, drew members from as far away as Atlanta as well as country folks closer to Thomson, Georgia.

Sister knew Epp Wilson, the senior master, so she knew Jason told the truth but not all of it, or he hadn’t figured out his real position vis-à-vis Mr. Wilson. Given his ego, the latter was quite possible.

Before Jason had joined Jefferson Hunt two years earlier, she’d done what any master would do. She called the master of his former hunt. Epp gave a forthright assessment, no beating around the bush.

The young doctor rode tolerably well. To his credit, he was fearless and generous to the club with his time and money. To his discredit, he was arrogant and thought he knew more than he really did about foxhunting.

Jason was an outstanding doctor. He went to war daily against cancer, his particular specialty within oncology being lung cancer. He never gave up and encouraged his patients to keep a positive attitude. He had a special talent for tailoring treatments to the individual. He didn’t practice cookie-cutter medicine. He also displayed an additional talent for self-aggrandizement, emboldened by the worship of many of his patients.

At Belle Meade Jason had whipped-in on those occasions when one of the regular whippers-in was indisposed. He confused riding ability with hunting ability. A whipper-in needs both.

“Yes.” Sister had a sinking feeling about where this discussion was heading.

“I’d like to whip-in for you. You could use a man out there.”

She bit her tongue. “I appreciate your enthusiasm. If you’re willing to walk out hounds in the off season, to learn each one, then we can go from there to next season’s cubbing.”

This was not the answer he’d anticipated. “I could learn their names as I go.”

“No. You need to know each single hound. You need to know their personalities, their way of going. How else can you identify them from afar on horseback?”

“Epp didn’t ask me to do that.” His face reddened.

She wanted to reply, “Epp didn’t ask you to do that because you were a last-minute fill-in. He’s a true hound man, and he’d not pick a whipper-in just because he could ride.” Instead, she demurred, “He would have gotten around to it.”

“Am I refused?”

“Delayed,” she smiled.

He had the sense not to lose his temper. He was a highly intelligent man and he recognized that Sister was like the great horned owl: silent and powerful. Don’t openly provoke her.

He rode back to his impressive three-horse slant-load trailer with its small, well-appointed living quarters, something rarely seen in foxhunters’ trailers. This was pulled by a spanking new Chevy Dually, a mighty Duramax 6600 turbo-diesel V-8 under the polished hood. Coupled with an all-new Allison six-speed transmission, the 6.6 liter Duramax put out 360 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of raw torque.

Sister admired the brute of a truck. She gave Jason credit for buying a truck that could do the job. She also gave him credit for managing to buy this model months before it would be on Chevy lots. She hoped when it was made available it wouldn’t be tarred and feathered with the Chevy ads that completely insulted women. They had to be seen to be believed.

Jason had money. He’d no doubt give more to the club if he could claim to be a whipper-in, a coveted position.

Many a master, strapped for cash, gratefully accepted a large contribution, then put the soul out where he or she could do the least harm. The other alternative was to couple the neophyte with the battle-hardened whipper-in for a half season or entire season and pray some of the knowledge would rub off.

Her method was to watch a candidate in the stifling hot days of summer. Were they quiet with hounds? Did they impart confidence with firmness? Were they helpful in the kennels if asked?

It was one thing to be on the edge of the pack, possibly attracting the admiring gaze of the ladies and the envious stare of the gentlemen. It was quite another to clean the kennels in ninety-degree heat with corresponding humidity.

Yes, many wanted to be whippers-in, to swarm about the tailgates once hounds were in the kennels or loaded on the party wagon. That, too, wasn’t entirely proper. Staff shouldn’t mingle until hounds were properly bedded down. If a hound happened to be out, the whipper-in should find him or her. This divided the professional whipper-in from the honorary. The honorary would leave the hunt to go to their jobs whether or not a hound was out.

Jason might actually make an honorary whipper-in. She needed to see if he had hound sense and the even more elusive fox sense or game sense.

Her instincts told her he didn’t have the patience. Nor would he shovel shit.

She thought she had time to work this out, to provide him with something for his ego but steer him away from thinking he could handle her sensitive American foxhounds. Deep down, she also knew that he’d not be able to handle Shaker.

What an interesting dilemma.