Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

Hounds sounded fabulous, the echo of voices ricocheting from the steep terrain.

Tootie, Val, Felicity, and Pamela rode at the back of first flight. Out of the corner of her eye, Val perceived movement. She turned her head just as the bobcat shot out from under the thick mountain laurel.

“Oh, m’God,” she gasped.

Tootie followed Val’s eyes, and she, too, caught sight of that unique bobtail, a forty-pound cat, booking along. He then slid into more heavy cover on the other side of the trail. Had the hilltoppers been closer, they would have viewed him.

“Say something,” Pamela ordered. She’d caught a brief sight of the bobcat.

“I don’t know what to say,” Tootie replied irritably.

“Staff!” Felicity shouted for she saw a flash of red heading for them at a right angle.

“Shit.” Val, in tight quarters, wondered how to get out of the way. “One dollar,” Felicity gleefully announced.

The whole pack thundered behind them.

“Shut up, you two.” Tootie, passionate about hunting, thought they’d all talked too much already.

Val urged Moneybags into the bushes.

Unhappy though he was at the idea of getting scratched up, he did as he was told.

Iota, Parson, and Pamela’s Tango, a stunning bay, battled their way into the brush in the nick of time, for Shaker hurtled toward them.

Tootie had the presence of mind to remove her cap and swivel in the direction the bobcat had taken, since she couldn’t turn Iota any more, given the tight quarters.

Shaker, face scratched by thorns, sat upright as Showboat soared over a cluster of mountain laurel.

Seeing Tootie’s arm extended, cap at the end, he called out, “Gray?”

“Bobcat,” Tootie called back as Shaker disappeared on the other side of the deer path.

Ahead of them they heard Walter, obscured by the covert, but they couldn’t hear exactly what he said, given the sound of the hounds drawing away from them and the rattle of dead brown oak leaves clinging fast to branches. Certain oaks retain most of their leaves until the bud swells in spring, finally pushing them off.

“Are we lost?” Pamela asked.

“No. I know this territory,” Felicity said. She’d hunted it more than Pamela had.

“They must be reversing.” Tootie strained to hear up ahead. “Let’s get out of here.”

“All we have to do is stay to the side, then fall in the back.” Pamela couldn’t cede anything to Tootie, whom she considered a rival.

“There’s no room. We can’t get any farther off the path than we are now,” Felicity observed.

“I’m following the huntsman. The hell with it.” Val shot out of her tight quarters and turned Moneybags to the spot where Shaker had plunged into the brush again.

“Val, don’t,” Tootie admonished her.

Val disappeared.

Pamela, hearing the field approach from one direction, the hilltoppers from the other, groaned, “We’ll be squished.”

“Pamela, jump the mountain laurel, where Shaker jumped into the deer path. Do it. Everyone can get by, then we can jump out and bring up the rear.”

Pamela studied the formidable obstacle less out of fear than to plan her approach. Tango was facing in that direction, so she clucked to the sleek animal, then squeezed with purpose as she slid her hands forward.

Tango, a scopey fellow, meaning he could jump wide as well as high, took three trotting strides and soared over. A small clearing provided enough room for him to move forward before he smacked into a copse of black birch, the trees close together. He stopped in time as Iota cleared it, followed by Parson.

The three girls sat there, silent.

Sister trotted by. Three velvet hunt caps appeared on her right, although she couldn’t see the girls clearly. Saying nothing, she pressed on. Soon the sounds of Bobby Franklin and the hilltoppers getting out of first flight’s way filled the air.

People shouldn’t talk during a hunt except on the way back when hounds are lifted, but in such tight quarters a word here or there did escape lips. The crashing about in the bush amused Iggy the schoolhouse fox, who had watched the drama from under a mass of junipers on a rise in the land, their thick scent masking his.

He stayed upwind. Hounds blasted one hundred yards beneath him, but the bobcat scent, heavy, kept them from even catching a hint of his, for potent as the junipers were, a tendril of fox musk might have reached them.

As Charlotte Norton and Bunny Taliaferro rode past, Bunny craned her neck to see her three charges in there. Pleased at their perfect manners, she smiled broadly, as did Charlotte Norton. At that moment it didn’t register with either woman that they counted only three caps, not four.

Once Jason and Walter had passed, Tootie clapped her leg on Iota. He cleared the mountain laurels again with ease. Felicity and Pamela followed, as Tootie had quickly moved up the deer path to give them room.

Before they could trot on, out popped Iggy. He grinned ear to ear.

“Tally ho,” Pamela called out.

“Won’t do any good.” Iggy sauntered next to them, using their horses as a cover and a foil.

“Oh, my God; oh, my God.” Felicity, overcome by Iggy following them like a dog, could scarcely breathe.

“He’ll duck out when he’s ready,” Tootie predicted.

“Smart for a young human,” Iggy remarked to the horses.

“She has all the instincts to make a great hunter, this kid,” Iota bragged on his human.

“Mine has no game sense at all,” Parson sighed, as he loved Felicity.

“Doesn’t need it,” Tango replied. “Mind like a steel trap. She’ll run a company someday and have more hay than anyone else.”

“Ever notice how some humans can learn and others can’t, whereas we always learn from what’s around us?” Iggy mused.

“Curious.” Iota had noticed this because Tootie absorbed everything, whereas the others, not unintelligent, only picked up what they were looking for in the first place.

“They need systems,” Parson, named for a practitioner of such a system, said.

“I think they’re born that way.” Tango turned his head slightly to avoid a hanging vine. “Damn thing.”

“I don’t. Heredity is stored environment. This fear, this need to believe, overrides their heredity. They don’t listen to their bodies anymore except for sex. They’re making a real mess of it, too.” Parson had strong opinions.

“Well, you must observe natural phenomena without judgment,” Iggy shrewdly noted. “That’s the only way you can flourish.” He stopped for a second. “Coming back. He won’t break into the open. If he gets bored with it, old Flavius will climb a tree. Mind you, he’s ferocious.” With that Iggy disappeared, calling over his shoulder, “ I’ll cross his line and get you all out of this ravine.”

Old Flavius, the bobcat, shot in front of Iota, who shied for a second. Tootie, tight leg, stuck like glue. Her heart pounded to be so close to such a beautiful yet fearsome beast.

“Hold hard.”

The other two had caught sight of the big cat, too.

Two minutes later the whole pack crashed in front of Tootie and charged into the brush.

Confusion overtook them as Iggy’s scent crossed Flavius’s line.

Seconds later, Shaker, more scratches on his craggy face, appeared.

Pausing in the deer path, right in front of Tootie, he listened intently. “Two lines.”

She remained silent. He smiled at her and turned his horse toward the north, staying on the deer path. “Girls, follow me.”

Thrilled, they did as they were told. Not four strides down the deer path, Val fought her way through the brambles to fall in behind Pamela.