Рита Браун - Fox Tracks

Sybil also kept her distance on the left.

Sister stayed about twenty yards away, the remnants of the field behind her. From there she could still see the tier sticks in the shed where four to six plants would be speared to hang, ropes tethered to them to raise and lower the orderly lattice framework holding the valuable leaves. In the center of the dirt floor would be a dug-out firepit, charred, looking like a dirty navel. Even from a distance, one smelled the magical perfume: old hardwood fire mixed with the sweetness of tobacco. The aroma could still tingle the senses, even decades after this shed’s abandonment, more evidence of the destruction of the small tobacco growers due to antismoking legislation back in 1964.

Shaker emerged from the shed, a broad smile on his face after having blown “Gone to Ground” on his horn. The hounds dutifully followed him out, all but little Thimble, the runt of the second “T” litter. This was just too darn exciting. The fox was in that big hole in the corner and she couldn’t leave him.

“I have him. I have him,” she sang out in her reedy voice, not a desirable booming one.

Outside, Sister laughed, and saw Betty and Sybil laughing, too. The three of them, along with Shaker, worked with the hounds year-round. Sister and Shaker lived with them, the graceful kennels with their brick archways forming a square, had been built on Sister’s farm. This was the first time Thimble had been in on a run that put a fox to ground.

Shaker, with big smile, cajoled little Thimble, “Come on, girlie, girl.”

“No. I did an important thing,” Thimble sang some more.

Senior hound Cora returned to the shed. “Thimble, I will bite your tail. Come on. Time to go.”

Thimble sat down right next to the den, hearing the fox squeak. “Why don’t you move your sorry ass?”

Her ears pricked up. She peered into the den to see two bright eyes peering back at her.

“He’s right,” said Cora. “We’ve done our job. Come on, Thimble.”

She trotted out, puzzled, finally asking Cora, “Are foxes allowed to sass us?”

Cora laughed that dog laugh where they expel air in a short puff. “All the time. Wait until you meet Aunt Netty. My God, that vixen’s tongue could rust cannon. Come on now, young one. You did well.”

Thimble accompanied Cora back to the pack, patiently waiting, glad for the rest.

“Well done,” Shaker praised his pack.

A sensitive man, Shaker knew his hounds. Far better for Cora to correct the youngster than for him to make a big deal out of it. If he had had to go in and bring her out, he would have. But the hounds live together, establishing their own society. Like nearly all pack animals, there is a clear leader. It’s a peculiarity of humans, who are pack animals, that they so often fail to develop effective leadership. Neither hounds nor horses, who are herd animals, had any such problems.

Shaker easily swung up into Hojo’s saddle, his dexterity a source of envy for many watching him. He walked over to Sister, their two horses touching noses for a moment.

“Didn’t they do splendidly?” Sister glowed.

Also high from the successful chase, Shaker nodded. “Tell you what, Boss, they just get better and better.” Looking fondly at the hounds, he said, “These youngsters are special.”

“Yes, they are.” She pulled her grandfather’s pocket watch out of the watch pocket. “We’ve been out here a little over two hours. Doesn’t seem like it. We’ll have about a half hour walk back. Let’s lift them. The ground’s getting dicey. Let’s get them back in the kennels and rub a little bag balm on those who need it.”

Lifting hounds meant taking them off a line or ending the day’s sport. The hounds literally lift their noses.

“Righto.” Turning, he called the pack to them. They headed west at a leisurely pace.

Sister and Lafayette passed Bobby. “Got everyone?” Sister asked.

“Do. They had a soft landing when they popped off.” He smiled. “What a go!”

“Was.” She smiled back.

They reached the stone fence with the drainage ditch. Sister rode alongside it to find the fence’s lowest point and stepped over it. She gave Lafayette a second, then they jumped again over the ditch. The field had jumped a lot that day, run a lot, no point pushing it. As it was, a few horses didn’t find good purchase on the other side of the ditch, their riders having to stand up and lean forward to help the animal. It’s easy to misjudge a ditch, especially for many riders since so few hunts had ditch jumps in their territory. Jefferson Hunt had only one other one, which was a whistling bitch. People learned.

The horses knew what to do. It was the rider who sometimes miscalculated and looked down. Never a good idea.

Once both fields were on the other side of the ditch, they hung together and entered the heavy woods. The clouds dipped lower now, the sense of moisture was heavier, too, and that respite where the mercury climbed to the low forties ended. The silver liquid plunged in the thermometers.

Eager to pull off her boots and wet socks, Betty rode along praying they’d get the hounds into the trailer quickly. Her feet were killing her.

In the woods, the trees swayed more as the wind increased. Dasher, a littermate of Diana’s, stopped in his tracks. Diana, seeing her brother stop, put her nose down.

“Bear!”

When no fox scent is around, many hunts consider bear, bobcat, even cougars fair game. Jefferson Hunt was one of those.

For a brief moment, Shaker studied his hounds, milling around, then they took off. And with a roar so did everyone else.

Scent led south, and bears tend not to circle back or play tricks. They run in a straight line. Foxes can, too, if the mood strikes them.

No one had heard the bear crashing about, but his scent was relatively fresh and the hounds screamed.

The staff’s horses were fit, and more than up to another hard run. As the day was so cool, that also worked in their favor. Had it been a hot day, such as one finds at the end of a cubbing run, cubbing being early in the season, Sister might have led the field back. In the old days, everyone hunting knew horses. They knew when their horse was tucked up, had enough. These days, a field master couldn’t count on that. Those in the First Flight could ride, to be sure, but a rider is not necessarily a horseman. Sister kept a close eye on her field and if she saw a horse’s flank draw up, a chest heaving, or an animal laboring in any fashion, she sent its rider back, ordering them to walk. Sometimes she had to tell them to get off and walk their horse back. Too many didn’t know to do that. Sister always gave her orders with kindness, never treating the person badly. She knew many of these riders had come to horses late in their lives. Depending on natural ability and guts, one can learn to ride in a year or two, at least good enough to go Second Flight. Yet it takes a lifetime to make a horseman. Old as she was, Sister was still learning.

Running low to the ground, hounds covered ground quickly. They reached a deep ravine, the sun’s rays long and slanting in winter, darkness gathering in the defile. The minute Sister picked her way down the narrow path, a deepening cold hit her. Hounds started up the other side, then turned back to run in the crease of the ravine. A narrow, often rocky trail rested alongside the crease, which turned into a thin hard-running stream emerging from underground.

Horses could trot but not much more. The ravine’s end opened into a wide, fast eastward-running creek, its waters swollen with runoff from the mountains. Here, the first snowflakes fell.

The hounds leapt into the creek. Sister and Lafayette followed, the going slow, as the current was swift and the water about three feet high at that entry point. On the other side, hounds continued south, still on Old Paradise property. Suddenly they stopped, surrounding an old locust tree.