Рита Браун - Fox Tracks

Over time, this station and many others like it fell into disuse, then disrepair. When Kasmir Barbhaiya bought the property a little over a year ago, he stabilized the structure, repaired the plumbing, cleaned it, and repainted it. He couldn’t bear to see the destruction of such tiny bright pieces in the mosaic of a grand past. This Saturday, the large parking lot, with its potholes all filled, gave promise to a huge hunt field.

Kasmir’s vast holdings were well foxed with reds and grays.

Coyotes stuck closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains and, as this was a year when game was plentiful, they posed little problem at Tattenhall Station. For now.

It was always in Sister’s mind, and Shaker’s, that this omnivorous adaptable species was as lazy as a human. If coyotes could eat without working for it, they would. Any farmer with fowl not secured at night found themselves the next morning without their geese, ducks, and chickens. Then, too, coyotes were happy to pick up puppies, kittens, and small house dogs. Best of all for the rangy canines was the humans’ garbage, easily torn up. No working at all for that. Unwittingly, people brought the coyote closer.

However, even like a fundamentally lazy human such as Carter Weems had been, coyotes will work when pressed.

Hunting at Orchard Hill three weeks ago, Sister had seen coyote tracks. She had known they belonged to a coyote because, although the size of a domestic dog, they are in a straight line, the hind feet often stepping into the prints left by the forefeet. She wasn’t too worried about it because it was their breeding season, too. Males travel long distances to find a mate. All the female has to do in most mammal species is throw on a little lipstick and wait.

Directly across from Tattenhall Station was the red brick utilitarian volunteer fire department building on the east side of the tracks.

Sister lifted up on Matador as Shaker mounted Kilowatt, Kasmir’s gift to the club last year on February 19. This was February 18, and unknown to Kasmir, the nonhunting members of the club—usually married to hunting members—had decorated the inside of the station with a banner thanking him and declaring it St. Kasmir’s Day. The hunt breakfast would be the usual fare, but today High Vajay and his wife, Mandy, had also brought special Indian dishes beloved by Kasmir.

The focus of all this gratitude was utterly unaware of it since the hunting ladies of the club, directed to divert his attention before taking off, easily did so. In his mid-forties and widowed, Kasmir was ever mindful of the ladies.

Shaker looked straight up at the lowering gray clouds. “The Weather Channel was right.”

“I give it an hour,” said Sister. “What about you?”

“Think you’re right.” The huntsman agreed with his master that the snows were due soon.

Betty and Sybil were already mounted and waiting to move off. Betty had Tootie with her. Sister wanted Tootie to ride with each whipper-in a number of times and once or twice up with Shaker, so she would know how the huntsman operates. Tootie had to work up to Shaker though.

“Well, let’s do it,” Sister said to Shaker and then in a louder voice for the field, “Hounds, please.”

They walked behind the station, a huge expanse of pasture before them, wire fence interspersed with coops. Kasmir would eventually fence the property, which would cost a fortune but look terrific. Right now his energies were focused on bringing the pastures back and fixing up the modest Virginia farmhouse he lived in. Someday he might build a larger home, but that would be something he would do with a wife, if someday he found another woman to love, who would love him for more than his money.

Sister, as always, counted heads. Thirty-two in First Flight. Bobby shepherded fifty. Many people had come out because they hoped it would be a good day, and others because the word had passed about the celebration for Kasmir.

The group walked along, hounds fanning out in front, searching for scent. On the nearby road heading to Old Paradise, Sister spotted Crawford, his hound van, Sam driving the horse van, and three stock vans driving by—also, Tariq in his Saab, looking longingly at the huge field.

“Doesn’t miss a chance, does he?” Sister heard Edward Bancroft say to his wife and Gray as they rode up behind her.

“He had to see us, too,” Sister remarked knowing Jefferson Hunt’s large field would inflame Crawford.

The banter ended. Strictly speaking, it was out of line, as hounds were drawing in at the end. They all saw Tootie and Betty, horses’ heads pointing south, hats off.

Softly calling to his hounds, Shaker turned them south. Asa, out today, surged forward with Diana. Right behind them were two young entry, Parker and Pickens. The youngsters stopped, turned slightly right toward the west, noses down, and opened.

The older hounds rushed toward them, noses down. They opened, too. The fox zigzagged a bit, then straightened out. He was a large red fellow with a magnificent brush.

This section of Tattenhall Station—all pasture—afforded everyone a fabulous view of a fox running well ahead of hounds, all of the dogs singing and running as one.

The snowflakes began to fall. The fox disappeared in a slight swale, then reappeared farther down, heading back toward the tracks. Gaining a little more time on the pack, he really opened up. Diddy, Diana, all the young entry and second-year entry moved as fast as they could. The older hounds comprised the middle of the pack. This early in the hunt, no one lagged behind. On those long days toward the end, a few hounds would be perhaps ten or twenty yards behind the pack, a sign that they should be retired at the end of the year.

No one popped off. The tight footing wasn’t slick yet. The mostly flat pasture had a soft roll here and there, such as the little swale the fox had used.

The big red fellow crossed the north–south road. Sister cleared a stiff coop in the fence. She had three strides before she was out on the road, then over that. Three more strides and over the stone fence at Beveridge Hundred. Out of sight now, the fox dodged into the Christmas tree rows at Beveridge Hundred, a little sideline for the farm. The bushy Douglas firs, already over Sister’s head, blocked any sight of the clever critter. She could see some of the hounds in the row in which she ran, but the hounds were all forward, in many rows.

Silence.

She came to a halt. Shaker and the pack stood at a culvert under the farm road, a forest on the other side. Hounds cast, furious to relocate the scent, which had been hot, hot, hot. Nothing.

“I know it’s here,” Pickens cried in frustration. “He has to be here.”

Shaker moved them along into the woods. Nothing. He came back out, walked down the farm road toward the house, which was a mile distant. Nothing. Then he returned to the spot where the hounds lost the scent. Zilch. After moving in all four directions, he sat for a moment, collected his thoughts, then collected the hounds.

How a fox can vanish has mystified people since Aesop’s time. Shaker sure didn’t have an answer.

Shaker walked down to the state road, turned left, dropped over the slight bank onto flat ground. Walking along the fence line, he kept the pack off the road and the field was now behind in a single line. A coop appeared in a thick forest on Tattenhall Station land. Cleanly set, one had only to face it squarely and leap over into a nice path in the woods. Rarely used, the black coop was only two and a half feet high. But a horse had to jump from open land—a wide view—into a dark woods and a narrow lane.

Sister, legs of iron, gave Matador a firm squeeze. Over they went. The horse appreciated a clear signal and was a bold fellow anyway, a source of argument back in the barn: Who was the bravest? Matador knew that he was. The Bancrofts got over the coop nicely, as did Kasmir, High Vajay, Mandy, and Xavier, who had lost a lot of weight, which his horse greatly appreciated. For whatever reason, Ronnie Haslip crashed the jump. Ronnie was a good rider, too. Even moving off, Sister heard the crack behind.