Рита Браун: Homeward Hound

The wind picked up. Not strong but about ten miles an hour. Enough to make keeping one’s nose on the line an act of concentration. Wind can blow scent. Hounds make up for this by alertness. A stiff wind, though, creates problems. That’s when the huntsman has to figure out where the line might be, assuming it’s still operable.

Both Weevil and Skiff moved closer, anticipating stronger wind. One never knew this close to the mountains and one never knew about wind devils either.

Hounds steadily pushed. Cry grew louder. The pace picked up. They worked beautifully. Staff was thrilled. The field was happy to be moving on for the wind was starting to cut. A few realized what outstanding hound work this was. So many in the flights couldn’t see what hounds were doing. And even then many didn’t understand the conditions under which hounds tried for them.

A slow gallop brought them closer and closer to Beveridge Hundred. A few outbuildings promised refuge, or so the huntsmen hoped, but no, fox kept going. But where?

Hounds barreled past the outbuildings. Millie, sitting at the window, saw them. She managed a bark.

Hounds looked up as they passed the old dog sitting in her window seat. She emitted another bark. Hounds filed past the house in a schoolyard line, noses down. Weevil and Skiff behind them stepped carefully. Shrubs close to the house sat amidst buried bulbs. One could just see the edging on those gardens.

The field, forty yards back at this point, also walked carefully.

Hounds trotted slowly. The line was holding but weaving in and out. Hounds stopped every now and then to check. The fox circled the small barn but did not go into the small dug entrance at the end. Hounds then crossed over the farm road, walked behind the tidy garage for the dependency. Then they headed straight for Yvonne’s house and the doghouse. He’d been here, too. Yvonne, waiting at the end of the driveway, didn’t want to get in the way. No one knew where this fellow was heading and she thought best to sit on the road.

“You got a fox there?” Shaker asked.

“A visiting fox. I don’t think one lives by the houses,” she answered.

“But foxes are there?”

“I see them. A gray and then a small red who visits me almost every day.”

“H-m-m.” Shaker rubbed his chin, wishing he could shave.

Hounds walked back to the small stable, stopped again.

“Fan out. He came back. He has to have moved off from here. He’s far enough ahead of us he has time to,” Diana paused. “Found it.”

She opened, whipped around, going straight out the driveway. Hounds crossed in front of Yvonne, Aunt Daniella, and Shaker. Then Weevil, Skiff, and Sam followed. After that it was the two flights and just when Yvonne was ready to take her foot off the brake they all turned, ran in front of her again, turned and headed west again.

“I’m dizzy.” Yvonne laughed.

“Clever boy, this fox.” Shaker would have nodded if he could. “Yvonne, sit tight for a little bit. I’ll give you even odds that he’ll turn and if he does, this time we might view.”

Ronnie, back at the small stable, had dismounted when the field took off. It was his turn to answer Nature’s call. Dewey volunteered to hold his horse. If hounds hit big, Pokerface would have left Ronnie flat. To hell with the human, hounds are in full chorus.

“Thank God for bushes.” Ronnie sighed as he relieved himself. “You know, Dewey, I’m surprised more foxhunters don’t get bladder infections.”

“Bet we do and we don’t tell. Come on, hurry up.”

“Wait a minute.” Ronnie bent down to check a gleam under a tight boxwood.

The Van Dorns, decades ago, planted English boxwoods everywhere thinking the waxy green would show to good effect.

“Ronnie, hounds are opening.”

“I found something. Hold your horses.”

“I’m holding your horse, dammit,” Dewey fired back.

Ronnie, quiet, slipped the cigarette case he had found in the boxwoods into his coat pocket. He mounted up.

“Let’s go.” Dewey squeezed Bosco and blew out of there.

Ronnie followed, both men pulling up as they saw Yvonne’s car. She waved them on.

A jump, not far, allowed them to get over into the southernmost part of Old Paradise. Hounds bellowed now, deep tones, light baritones, basso profundos, a tenor here and there, and a squeal or two from a youngster. Even the female hounds sang out with full, deep voices. For the foxhunters this was as beautiful as Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

They galloped, snow stinging a little as it hit faces. Old Paradise, enormous with many open pastures as well as the now-discovered graves hidden in woods, was a foxhunter’s dream. On and on they ran, people falling back. Staff thanking the Lord for fit Thoroughbreds underneath them.

This same prayer was uttered by field members. A few crossbreds hung in there, perfectly conditioned. But on long, hard runs and over time, the Thoroughbred usually had the advantage. The animal was bred to run. A Thoroughbred gave you everything they had. Other horses, smarter perhaps, did not.

Hounds, flat out, covered those miles from the jump to the Carriage House in under twenty minutes. Twenty minutes over uneven ground, patchy footing, a steady wind blowing just enough snow in their eyes to make them squint. Same with the horses and humans.

Those miles on the flat would have been covered faster. In this territory, staff put on the afterburners, snow and mud flying underfoot, rating one’s horse to motor down a tricky swale here and there, blowing across small streams for the land was well watered.

Finally, hounds stopped right at the Carriage House. A den entrance by the southeast corner showed where he had ducked in. This fellow, new, had claimed the Carriage House. Hounds dug at the den.

Skiff jumped off, throwing her reins over her horse’s neck. As she knew this place better than Weevil, she took over.

She blew “Gone to Ground,” praised and petted each hound as Weevil stood by her horse. No need to reach for the reins, the animal was well trained, enjoying the horn notes as much as everyone else including the fox. No more running today.

Dewey, next to Ronnie, at the rear of First Flight, reached into his coat, handing Ronnie back his flask filled with Kentucky bourbon. Before completely handing it over, Dewey took a sip.

“Not Maker’s Mark. Umm, you do this. You put in a different bourbon each hunt and if we take a sip we have to identify it. I’ll take another. Ah. Woodford Reserve.”

Ronnie relieved Dewey of the flask, slipping it in its leather holder on the right front of his saddle. “Is this what you were looking for?” He reached into his coat, pulled out a gold cigarette case, handing it to Dewey with the bold roman initials on the front: G.E.L.

Dewey allowed Ronnie to drop the expensive, masculine cold case in his hand.

Ronnie continued. “You didn’t really need to go to the bathroom when you stopped. Why did you do it, Dewey? I can’t understand. What was the danger to you? How could you kill someone?”

Dewey stared at Ronnie, put the case in his pocket, then turned Bosco toward the buildings, toward the mountains behind.

“Stop him,” Ronnie yelled.

Sister, seeing that Dewey was going to pass her, forbidden on the hunt field anyway, moved out to block him. He pushed by her and tried to backhand her as he picked up a gallop.

Tootie, in the clear on the left, saw this. She saw Dewey try to hit Sister and went straight for him. The hounds were fine. She wasn’t thinking about them.

Dewey, now pursued, looked back. He reached farther into his coat where he was wearing a gun and holster well hidden. He pulled out the pistol and fired at Tootie. Missed.