Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

When the hounds blew through the bracken back out onto the ridge, they split into three different prongs. How could anyone fault them, for the scents were equally hot? Had one line been fresher than the other, the huntsman could have hoped his whipper-in on the side where the pack split could send them back. Today, Shaker faced an unenviable dilemma. As he reached the ridge again, up from the north-side deer path, he caught a glimpse of three brushes disappearing in three different directions.

During January or February, a huntsman would rather chase a dog fox than a vixen if one could choose. But Shaker couldn’t choose. Cora led the group on Uncle Yancy. Dasher roared after Inky, taking many young entry with him. To everyone’s surprise and Sister’s delight, little Diddy, showing her mettle for the first time as a strike hound, blew after Comet.

Shaker paused under the moaning tree, then plunged down the south side, using the farm road. He stuck behind Diddy. First off, he delighted in seeing this development. Second, he wanted to get the pack onto Comet. He didn’t want to run Inky. Not only was she a vixen, but her den was too close. Too short a go. Also, today was January 14. It was possible she was pregnant. He never liked running a pregnant vixen, even early in a pregnancy.

Luckily, Betty, on Magellan, was further to his right. She could push back Dasher and the young entry. Dasher, a biddable hound, might wonder why he was being called off a hot line, but he trusted the huntsman and he trusted Betty.

Sybil, on his left and out of sight, was still learning the intricacies of whipping-in. A brilliant rider, she was developing nicely. However, hounds would test her long before they’d test Betty or Shaker. Then, too, if they heard a reprimand from Sister riding up behind them almost like a tail whip, which Jefferson Hunt did not use, those hounds would do as told.

As it was, Sybil rode like a demon to get in front of Cora, a hound of speed and intelligence.

Cora turned her head. Why was Sybil, on her big bay thoroughbred, Bombardier, riding like hell to get in front of her? She was right as rain. She was on Uncle Yancy.

“Leave it,” Sybil called.

Cora refused. The human was wrong.

Then the crack of Sybil’s whip like rifle fire brought her head up. She slowed. Her concentration broke, and she heard Shaker’s horn blow “Gone Away” from the farm road. She was in the middle of the wildflower field, white with snow.

“Go to him,” Sybil ordered.

“What’s going on?” Dreamboat, second-year entry, asked.

“Too many foxes, but I picked the one who had furthest to run. Dammit!” Cora cursed.

Tinsel suggested, “We could go on.”

“Better not. Better trust Shaker.” Cora reluctantly turned right, heading back toward the farm road, a line of pines breaking the increasing wind.

“Good hounds,” Sybil called after them.

“Good, yes, but I picked the fox, the best fox for the day. Why, we could have run all the way to pattypan!” Cora grumbled to herself as she loped across the field to rejoin the center splinter of the pack. “What is Uncle Yancy doing over here anyway? He’s all over the place.”

“Ha!” Uncle Yancy stopped right in the middle of the wildflower field when the pack turned.

Sybil, trotting behind the hounds, turned to face him. “You’re one lucky devil.”

“Not with my wife, I’m not.” He grinned raffishly. “Had to get away from Netty. Here I am.”

Sybil laughed when he barked at her. That flooding sensation of speaking with another species filled her with awe. In a sense, the two creatures understood each other.

Bombardier understood every word and whinnied, “Long hike to escape your wife.”

“Hells bells, I gave her pattypan. I came back to my old den.”

Uncle Yancy’s old den, originally shared with Aunt Netty, was on the west side of Roughneck Farm, about a half mile from the apple orchard where Georgia, Inky’s daughter, now lived.

That was the last den where he and Aunt Netty had cohabited.

“Maybe you should become a bachelor,” Bombardier grinned, his big teeth quite a contrast to Uncle Yancy’s sharp fangs.

“You’re a gelding; what do you know?” Uncle Yancy taunted the bay.

“I have imagination.” Bombardier humped his back, kicking out playfully.

Sybil, enraptured by Uncle Yancy, had slowed to a walk. The buck brought her to her senses. She squeezed Bombardier’s flanks, and the two moved along faster.

Cora, speed serving her well, had already reached the main body of the pack. The others, not far behind her, joined in.

Cora came alongside of Diddy. “Well done.”

Wild-eyed with excitement, Diddy yelped, “I can do it!”

“You can do it when I retire.” Cora pulled ahead, but she said this with warmth.

One thing, she’d never relinquish her position of strike hound to Dragon. If only the coyote had severed his jugular. She’d think about training Diddy. Somewhere down the line they’d both have to deal with Dragon.

Dasher, pushed back by Betty, now joined the pack, too. Inky had popped into her den just as Betty rode near the northernmost splinter of the pack.

He stuck his head in Inky’s den to prove what he’d done. Betty told him he was really wonderful but he’d better yank his head out of that den and get to Shaker.

Once the two groups had joined the chase after Comet, Shaker blew the long note followed by three short ones. They were all on.

The sixty-seven riders, amazed at their good fortune, contended with the packed snow, the patches of ice, and the splotches of frozen mud churned up during the short thaw earlier in the week.

Faces flushed, they were breathing hard, and sweat soaked their backs even though the temperature was barely nudging forty degrees. Comet raced straight down the farm road in full view. He had a head start and trusted his fleet paws as well as his cunning.

His special treat for them today was to run for the trailers. He ran in the back door of one big rig and out the tack room door, swinging open. Two minutes later the pack did the same, except that they jammed in the tack room door, and that slowed them down.

He ran into Joe Kasputys’ rig, heard Caesar, the German shepherd, bark from the truck cab, and quickly bolted out of that trailer. When the hounds hurtled into the trailer it rocked back and forth. This plucked Caesar’s last nerve.

Next Comet ran around the kennels, which sent every hound not hunting that day into a frenzy. The cacophony was deafening and confusing because it took some time for Shaker to recognize where the pack was once the hounds were on the other side of the kennel.

He managed to pick his way around it and realized the pack was blowing through the orchard. A few unpicked apples rested under the snow. One couldn’t race through there. The horses carefully walked through, emerging back out on the farm road.

However, a few hounds stopped by Georgia’s den. This also cost time. Georgia, relaxing, became irritated when two hounds dug at her main entrance.

Betty had to push them on.

Back together again, the pack now leaped over some old hedges, neatly trimmed. They crisscrossed the farm road three times, jumping those same hedges, as did the field.

Comet, in his glory, thought to run through the wildflower field but decided against it in case there were drifts. Much as he wanted to show himself to the humans and rub his superiority in their faces, he prudently blasted down the farm road, just nipped through the corner of the apple orchard again, then snaked through the trailers, causing pandemonium once more as hounds rattled through shining aluminum trailers, older steel ones, and one big old horse van, rarely seen among foxhunters these days.