Рита Браун: Hounded To Death

“You just missed Mo Schneider,” Sister remarked.

“Maybe someone will mix up a cyanide cocktail for him at the party. Do us all a world of good.” His gray eyes glinted at Tootie. “If he so much as looks at you cross-eyed, you come straight to me, hear?”

“Yes, Judge.”

“Are you showing hounds or spectating?” Shaker inquired.

“O.J. asked me to be ring steward. American ring.” He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Who doesn’t want to be in demand?”

“You can show a hound. Drat.” Sister snapped her fingers. “I was hoping we could go head-to-head.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “We can, dear heart, we can. Head-to-head!”

After he left to go to the party, Tootie noted, “He’s very distinguished-looking.”

“That he is. He could have been governor, but he said he didn’t have the stomach for electoral politics. He made the right choice.”

“He really likes you. Not fake. Not like Mo.”

Tootie, sensitive and observant, was right.

“Men always like Sister. Women, too. She gets along with both sexes.” Shaker checked one of his tent poles.

“Are you sure you want to sleep out here?” Sister said.

“Boss, I do.”

“You know you have a room next to mine.”

“I’ll use it to shower. I want to stay here with the hounds.” He sucked in a breath. “Especially now I know Mo is here.”

“Why?” Tootie was puzzled.

“He’s been known to take a hound and then lie through his teeth, but we always know because two years later he’ll arrive at a show with get that look just like the dog that went missing. He can hide the stolen hound so no one sees it in his kennels, but blood tells.” Shaker crossed his arms over his chest. “Bloodlines are gold, you know. It’s just like stealing gold.”

“But you-all allow people to breed to our hounds and you go breed from other kennels.” Tootie wasn’t contradicting Shaker, just being curious.

“Tootie, we go to Middleburg or Deep Run, Casanova, Orange, Keswick, Farmington, or Colonial, and we do it properly, with permission. We know the people, and those hunts are within three hours’ driving distance. Sometimes we’ll drive to Maryland to Green Spring Valley for hounds. Not only do they have lines we want, the huntsmen take excellent care of their kennels. Mo doesn’t take care of anything. He starves his hounds and then fattens up the pretty ones for the shows. He hunts his own hounds and can’t hunt a hair of them. He’s really a despicable human being.” Sister felt that first chill of night air and shivered. “Although I did hear he hired a kennelman two years ago, so at least the starving and beating stopped. He once ran a horse to death, too.”

“Why doesn’t the Master of Foxhounds Association throw him out?” Tootie asked the right question.

“Because he’s sneaky. They have to catch him at it. Somehow he gets word of surprise visits to his kennels or stables in time to spirit away the raggedy-looking hounds and horses. He’s got so much money, who knows who he’s paying to spy on the MFHA? If he is. Sooner or later, I swear, he’ll get his,” Sister answered.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in this sport love animals, but there are a few who don’t.” Shaker shrugged. “Vicious creeps.”

“I say we send them to Congress where they’ll be with their brethren.” Sister laughed.

Shaker laughed, too. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you don’t believe in democracy.”

“Don’t.” Sister inhaled. “All right, what’s left to be done?”

“Nothing,” Shaker replied.

“Let’s party, then.”

“Okay,” Shaker said, “but I’m leaving early. I want to be fresh tomorrow. And I want to feed hounds, walk them out at six-thirty A.M., too. I’ll unhitch the dually. I know once you get there you won’t be able to get away. Going to be a big day.” Shaker felt the buzz of competitiveness begin.

“You bet.” Sister grinned.

Many competitors had already left for the party. Few people were around or, if they were, they kept out of sight.

The three entered the house to freshen up before going to the party.

Stepping back outside, Sister saw her hounds in full cry. She dashed back into the house as Shaker and Tootie emerged from the two bathrooms.

“Our hounds are out and scorching the wind.”

“Holy shit!” Shaker tore out the door, Sister and Tootie behind him.

They reached the Subaru. Sister hopped in the driver’s seat. The back door of the trailer swung open like a slack jaw.

“Horn?” Sister asked, before cranking the motor.

“Goddammit.” Shaker, upset, got back out, ran to the truck, and pulled his horn from the glove compartment.

Windows down, they listened to the hounds now turning toward the barn, perhaps half a mile from the house.

“Hope they don’t go to Sixty-eight.” Tootie mentioned the paved road leading to Shaker Village.

Sister gunned toward the barn as Shaker, hanging out the window, kept blowing the three long notes which asked hounds to return to him. With every rut in the road, he’d bob up, then drop down.

Hounds were already beyond the barn. Running flat out, they climbed the steep hill on the northern side of the barn.

The gate to that large pasture was shut.

Sister stopped. Shaker and Tootie got out.

“Locked. Goddammit to hell!” His face red, he threw his hands up in fury.

“We can lift it off the hinges.” Tootie noticed the heavy chain.

Shaker lifted the gate up while Tootie steadied it. Because of the manner in which the chain held the gate to the fence post, there was enough room for Sister to squeeze the car through. Once on the other side of the gate, Shaker put it back on its hinges.

Back in the car, Sister drove to the top of the hill and parked, because it afforded them a commanding view. The pack was working beautifully together, the unentered hounds folded right in. Heartening as this was to behold, the three on the hill could only think of getting them back.

Shaker continued to blow. The horn, air clear today, could be heard for three miles by human ears much as a train whistle can be heard for miles. Hounds can hear farther than that.

He blew and blew, then called, voice booming. “Come to me! Come to me!”

“Coyote.” Sister cursed.

Tootie pressed her lips together; she knew what coyote meant.

Coyote scent is heavier than fox so it’s easier for hounds to detect. Also, the coyote often runs in a blazing straight line, although he may make a big circle eventually to return to his den. Exciting though those runs may be, the larger predator lacks the skillful ruses, the engaging mental superiority of the fox. Hunting coyote, you want to stick in the saddle. Hunting the fox, you want to keep your senses razor sharp, since your quarry is smarter than you.

Often a coyote will run right out of the territory allowed to a hunt. This can create all manner of problems, of which a cranky landowner can be a big one.

Shaker kept blowing and one by one, hounds slowed, stopped, and listened.

Glitter, an unentered female, littermate to Giorgio, asked Diddy, “Why are we stopping?”

“Huntsman’s calling us back.”

“But,” inquired Glenda, another littermate, “ we’ve been hearing those notes all along.”

Dragon, handsome and in his prime, a trifle blocky in the body, chuckled. “Scent was so good we had to let ’er rip a little.”

“Look at that!” Shaker slapped his thigh as hounds trotted back to him.

“You know what my grandfather used to say.” Sister held up a finger pointing to the sky, presumably where her grandfather was.

In unison, both Shaker and Tootie repeated his words. “Trust your hounds. If you don’t trust your hounds, don’t hunt them!”