Рита Браун - Homeward Hound

“She is.” Yvonne stuck up for Skiff, who was looking down.

“Dewey better stop. If that fox shot back straight, Dewey will be in the middle of it. I’d cuss him like a dog. I don’t think Weevil will.”

“Dewey knows hunting, doesn’t he?” Yvonne asked.

“Oh he does, but not as much as he thinks he does. Most people in the field, even if they’ve hunted for years, don’t know but so much.” Shaker sniffed. “Never look at hound bloodlines either.”

“Well now, Shaker, that’s unfair. For most of them that would be like reading Greek.” Yvonne stuck up for the field. “What you do takes study, time, and I can’t imagine how many packs of hounds you have studied or hunted behind. Most people don’t have that kind of time or the eye. Then again, Shaker, this is your profession.”

That shut him up for a bit.

Aunt Daniella smiled. “Oh, he has pulled up.”

Dewey indeed stood stock-still and Bosco wasn’t happy about it.

“Dewey’s done well, hasn’t he?” Yvonne knew a bit of people’s histories but only so much.

“He has. There are quite a few people in the hunt and I’ve known many of them since they were children who really didn’t come from much, but I tell you what, they all went to college and made something of themselves. That’s why I was so upset, upset hell, devastated when Sam blew Harvard.”

A silence followed this as both Shaker and Yvonne knew the story and both felt and said that Sam had turned his life around. Was he going back to Harvard in his sixties? No, but he lived a useful life. Maybe even a better life than if he had graduated. Who is to say?

Aunt Daniella broke her own silence. “I know. I can’t let it go. I should. If my sister were here we could talk it through. Oh, if you could have only known him as a little boy. I’d call him my milkshake boy because he was the color of a milkshake.” She took a breath. “Odd but both my sister and myself had sons who were a tad darker than we were.”

“Mattered then.” Yvonne stopped as the field was circling and she didn’t know what they would do next.

“Matters now,” Aunt Daniella replied.

“Do you really think it does?” Shaker asked in all innocence.

“Maybe not as much, but it still helps to be light. Momma used to say the whiter we looked, the easier life would be.”

“Aunt Daniella, you could have been as black as a true Ethiopian and you would have conquered. Those fabulous cheekbones, your sexual allure. I mean here you are in your nineties and men still turn their heads.” Yvonne praised her.

“Well”—then Daniella laughed—“it’s not see what you get, it’s make what you get worth seeing.”

Shaker laughed as did Yvonne. “Seeing what you get. They’ve turned again. Back to Chapel Cross.”

First Flight trotted but slowly, for scent had become spotty. Second Flight, behind, had grown larger as some people from First Flight dropped back, for the hunt had been tiring. Dewey wended his way through Second Flight until immediately behind Bobby Franklin.

“May I go forward to First Flight?”

“Of course.”

Dewey picked up a trot, Bosco sure-footed on the falling snow, which was becoming slippery.

Hounds slowly worked in the direction of the old train station. Balzac, next to Tatoo, stopped.

“What?” Tatoo asked.

“He’s turned but it’s faint.” Balzac lifted his head. “Trudy, check this out.” Then he informed Tatoo, “She has a bit of a cold nose.”

“Ah.” Tatoo understood, for a cold nose could pick up faint scent, which was only a good thing if other hounds could just catch it.

Otherwise the cold-nosed hound would open and not be honored, a frustrating outcome for all.

Trudy put her nose down. “It’s him but he’s fading. Curious.”

If this hunt had gone by the textbooks, the line should have been heating up. This fox either possessed mojo or had walked across something to foul his scent.

“He’s turned,” Trudy called out as her houndmates ran to her.

Crawford’s hounds talked among themselves so Jefferson Hunt Hounds joined them as Weevil and Skiff watched.

Walking, the pack continued moving westward across the large pasture, trees dotting the land. They reached the road, Crawford’s land across it, in time to see a herd of deer gracefully lope toward the Carriage House in the far distance. Hounds paid no attention.

Sister pulled up as hounds stopped.

“Come on, good hounds. You can do it.” Weevil encouraged them.

Banjo, another of Crawford’s B litter, turned south alongside the road. He poked around as did his friends for twenty yards, then they opened at once.

Flying. It was 0 to 60 faster than a 911 Turbo.

Ronnie, taking a swig from his flask, nearly dropped his flask, then nearly dropped himself. Dewey on Bosco moved alongside him, grabbed the flask from his hand.

“You’ll thank me for this.” Dewey secreted the flask in his coat between the first and the second button.

“Took you long enough to get back.”

“I lingered.”

“Well, we aren’t lingering now.”

Those left in First Flight hugged the fence line on Kasmir’s side for the fox seemed to have run alongside of it.

Five minutes, ten minutes, more people began to falter. Sister and Aztec stayed behind the hounds. Kasmir and Alida, Sam, Gray, Freddie, the tough riders on hunting-fit horses hung in there, but others, due to exhaustion or age, slowed a bit. The fox did not.

They wound up in woods again, the tree branches brushed, dumping snow on them, especially the firs.

Yvonne turned around in the middle of the road. No traffic so that was easy. Shaker, nose pressed against the windowpane, watched for a flash of red.

Then hounds lost again. Everyone stood, grateful for the break. The snow fell a bit heavier, the sound of the flakes on the pine trees distinct. Snow found its way down coat collars, too.

Sister, alert, trusted her instincts, which told her the fox would return to Beveridge Hundred where he had more choices than being in the middle of a pasture or even crossing over to Old Paradise. Buildings and outbuildings offered escapes as well as scent spoilers, plus this was closer than Old Paradise.

The soft rattle of light wind in the tree branches, the faint patter of the snow filled Sister’s senses. Hounds worked to find scent. Standing there, waiting, one was reminded of how ravishing Nature is in her changing wardrobe.

Dreamboat’s stern moved. He’d come back out on the narrow path as the other hounds wound around tree trunks, poked noses into anything resembling a bolt hole. An angry click notified Pookah that one of those small holes in the tree trunk was occupied.

“Crabby.” The hound stepped back.

Pickens, next to his littermate, smiled, kept his nose down, then heard Dreamboat.

“Here,” the reliable hound called out as the others moved to him.

Weevil, trusting Dreamboat, on Shaker’s Kilowatt today, watched with rising anticipation. Tootie, ahead but waiting, also listened, as did Betty on the other side. Although easier to see in the woods during winter, the large number of conifers meant there were places where you couldn’t see. There was even a stand of large blue spruces, untouched for nearly a century, the snow intensifying their color.

Hounds milled about, a large circle both on and off the path.

“Let’s go.” Zorro found where the line was still good.

Hounds took off. Humans, full of breath thanks to the respite, followed them.

Scent held; although it faded in and out, it still held. Hounds moved along, trotting. No point running or one would overrun the line. The older hounds knew this and the younger ones had learned it through cubbing in the fall.