Рита Браун - Homeward Hound

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

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

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

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

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

“Does,” she replied.

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

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

All the hounds worked the wildflower field, but nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This way,” the youngster called.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dumb twits, she thought to herself.

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

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

“How else would I find your scent again?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like what?” Dreamboat sassed.

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

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

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

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

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

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