Рита Браун: The Hounds And The Fury

“All I know is Crawford is up to something.” He waited a beat. “See you on Matador.”

After the call, Sister checked each of the fires as the water heated. She poured herself a restorative cup of orange pekoe. While the tea warmed her she called the number in Maryland. Once she learned that the top line of the gelding went back to War Admiral and the bottom line traced to Golden Apple, a chestnut mare born in 1945, she made an appointment to have a vet check the horse. There are some people with whom you do business on their word; Sam was one. If he said it was a good horse, it was. Add the “staying” blood, and Matador was probably more than good. She made a note to send Sam a finder’s fee if this worked out. Sam needed all the money he could get. Next she called a vet she knew in Carroll County, Maryland. The sky had darkened; she piled her gear back on and went out to bring in the horses.

Raleigh and Rooster tagged along.

“You’ll be cold, paws wet, I’ll be warm as toast,” Golly called after them.

“You’re a big hairball the devil coughed up,” Raleigh replied over his shoulder.

Incensed, Golly grabbed Raleigh’s big knotted rawhide chew, but it was too big for her to damage it. She shredded one of Sister’s needlepoint pillows instead.

As Sister and Shaker finished the day’s chores and hurried in for barley soup, Samson “Sonny” Shaeffer, president of Farmers Trust Bank and a dear friend of Sister’s, received a phone call.

“Sonny, it’s Garvey Stokes.”

“How are you doing in this storm?”

“The kids love it,” Garvey replied. “They’ve worn me out.”

“By tomorrow every house in the county will have a snowman.”

“Yeah,” Garvey agreed. “I called to do a little business.”

“Sure. Anything I can help you with now?”

“Well, I’ve got a shot at tying up fifteen tons of aluminum, very high grade at $1,680 per metric ton. The Chinese are snapping up everything. I think by spring the price per metric ton will top out at $2,300. Of course, you never know, but despite the slowdown in demand by the auto makers for aluminum, I still think prices will climb. So I was hoping for a modest expansion to the business line of credit.”

“We should be able to accommodate you.”

“Business has been great, booming,” Garvey added.

“Once we can all get back to our offices, I’ll send over the paperwork.”

“Okay.”

After a few more pleasantries, Sonny hung up. He was glad to have Garvey’s account, Aluminum Manufacturers, Inc. The company made everything from window frames to the small caps on top of broom handles. It was one of the largest employers in the area. For the past five years Garvey had been buying up smaller companies in Virginia as well.

A good businessman, he hired competent people and trusted them to do their job while he concentrated on creating more business, seeking greater opportunities for profit.

Garvey, a foxhunter, rode the way he hired: bold with brio, if occasionally too impulsive. Better to have impulsiveness as a fault than to be too cautious in both business and foxhunting, although sooner or later one would tumble. Garvey trusted he’d get right back up again, and so far his trust had not been misplaced.

CHAPTER 3

The Blue Ridge Mountains stood like cobalt sentinels, reminding those who knew their geology of the time before human time when Africa and part of South America slammed into this continent during the Alleghenian Orogeny, pushing up what then were the tallest mountains in the world. These collisions had occurred between two hundred fifty million and three hundred million years ago, knocking into rock already over one billion years old.

Time’s unchallenged power affected Sister Jane. Each time she beheld the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, she paid homage to the forces of nature and to the brevity of human habituation: only nine thousand years by the Blue Ridge. At this exact moment, she was paying homage to the wisdom of the red fox, Vulpes vulpus.

Target, a healthy red in luxurious coat, had traveled too far from his den on After All Farm, the neighboring farm. He graced Sister’s Roughneck Farm. The Bancrofts, Sister’s beloved friends, owned After All. Hounds gaily shot out of the kennels at nine in the morning, skies overcast. Hunting in snow presented interesting tests for a pack of American foxhounds. The glowering skies, perfect for hunting, presaged well, but the snow would release scent only as the mercury climbed up from thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Today it stuck at thirty-eight degrees. Little snow melted. In the shade of towering pines and spruces, the mercury shivered below thirty-two degrees. But a fresh line is a fresh line, whether on dirt, sand, soft wet grass, or snow. A fresh line allows hounds to get on terms with their fox, and this morning highlighted both Sister’s and Shaker’s own good hunting sense. The hounds did the rest.

The small field, nine people, trotted behind the thirty-two couple of hounds gaily working what was called the wildflower meadow, a half mile east of the kennels, east of the sunken farm road that wound its way up to Hangman’s Ridge.

The two whippers-in, Betty Franklin and Sybil Bancroft Fawkes, rode at ten o’clock and two o’clock in relation to the pack. Shaker rode at six on the clock dial. They’d already moved through the mown hay field, which had been treated to a good dressing of fertilizer and overseeded before the hard frosts. The snow couldn’t have been better for the hay field.

On level ground the white blanket was piled to a foot. Wind kicked up deep drifts. Other spots had but two or three inches, thanks to the winds. Trouble was, you couldn’t readily tell the depth of the snow just by looking at it. If the temperatures remained low and another front passed through, this packing of snow would become the base for more powder. Weeks might pass before it melted in the deepest folds of ravines. Sometimes the snows in those places wouldn’t melt until April.

Sprays of white powder followed the hounds. Clods of snow popped off the horses’ hooves. The chill air brought color to everyone’s cheeks.

On Thursdays, Sister’s joint-master, Dr. Walter Lungrun, could join them. Tedi and Edward Bancroft, Gray Lorillard, Charlotte Norton, Bunny Taliaferro, Garvey Stokes, Henry Xavier (called “X”), and Dr. Jason Woods filled out the field this Thursday, December 29.

Diana, anchor hound, paused by a low holly bush. She inhaled deeply before moving to a dense bramble patch, which even without leaves was formidable.

A small tuft of deep red fur fluttered on a low tendril replete with nasty thorns. Large pawprints, rounder than a gray fox’s, marked Target’s progress. He’d meandered through in a hunting semicircle coming from the east.

“Target,” Diana called out.

Cora, the strike hound, Asa, Diddy, Dasher, and Dragon hurried over. All hounds put their noses to the bluish snow. Just enough eau de Vulpes, fresh on the surface, kept hounds moving. Their long wonderful noses warmed the air as it passed through.

As hounds, sterns waving, eagerly pushed this line, Sister passed the brambles. Her sharp educated eyes noted the tiny red flag. She observed the fresh prints, fur showing around the pad, preserved in deep snow as perfectly as fossils in stone.

“Close.” She thought to herself, echoing the assessment of her hounds.

Shaker still did not lift the horn to his lips.

“Let the young entry come up to the scent,” he thought to himself as four couple of first-year students joined the pack today, their very first hunt in snow.

Both Shaker and Sister liked hounds to figure things out for themselves, to be problem-solvers, a trait natural to foxhounds in general. It was one thing to call out in heavy coverts, or in ravines to give a toot just to let the hounds and whippers-in know where he was, but in open ground, he liked to be silent, with a word or two of encouragement to a youngster.