Рита Браун: The Hounds And The Fury

“Scent’s long gone by now.” Asa furrowed his brow, wrinkles deepening between his ears. “And the storm blew snow over whatever footprints there might be.”

Diddy inhaled again, her warm long nasal passages helping to release what scent remained. “I’ve never smelled human blood before. Since this is frozen, it must be very strong when it’s fresh.”

“’Tis,” Asa simply replied.

“Sure a big glop.” Dragon, too, was baffled.

“Human blood is never a good sign. Never.” Cora, voice low, turned from the blood against the snow to leap through the window, followed by the others.

Bitsy sat on the spine of the slate roof, almost as good as the day it had been put on in 1792. She’d watched everything, and her amazing little ears had picked up tidbits of the conversation inside the pattypan forge. St. Just then dive-bombed her.

“One of these days, Bitsy, I’ll get you!”

She blinked, ducked, then opened her little wings to scuttle through a window. St. Just flew in after her. She emerged on the other side only to be confronted with the whole angry mob of crows.

Shaker knew Bitsy. When Cora, Dragon, Asa, Dasher, and Diddy had rejoined the pack, he praised his hounds, patting them on the head.

“Bitsy, come down toward me.” Then he called to the little brown owl, badly outnumbered.

The hunt staff, as well as some of the other humans, recognized Bitsy, for her curiosity lured her into their company. She’d watch people disembark from the trailers, she’d sit on the barn weather vane, or she’d hang out in the big tree opposite the kennel door. Every now and then she’d emit the screech for which her type of owl was named. It could freeze one’s blood as sure as that frozen lump in the forge.

Bitsy, not as fast as the crows, kept her head down, which was pretty easy for her, and she flew to the edge of the slate roof closest to Shaker and the den entrance.

Target, inside, heard the commotion. If the pack hadn’t been out there he would have helped his friend. Under the circumstance, his emergence meant instant death.

The crows, wild with rage, ignored the human underneath them. They continued to attack Bitsy.

A huge pair of balled-up talons knocked one crow out of the throng. Then another. The people below, the horses and the hounds, looked up to behold Athena, her huge wingspread out to the full, her talons balled up like baseballs, wreacking havoc among the crows.

St. Just cawed loudly, then sped off, his squadrons with him. Two dazed crows lay in the snow.

Tinsel, a second-year hound, started for one.

“Leave it,” Shaker said quietly.

Tinsel quickly rejoined the pack.

“Never saw anything like that in my life.” Walter was gape-jawed.

“Me neither, but I know enough not to mess with a great horned.” Sister, too, was dazzled at the winged drama. She spoke to Shaker next. “Pick them up. It was a very good day for the young entry.” She smiled down at the pack. “Very good day for the Jefferson hounds.”

As they walked back, Sister motioned for Charlotte Norton to ride up to her.

The attractive young headmistress of Custis Hall, an elite preparatory school for girls, came alongside Aztec, Sister’s sleek young hunter.

“What a beautiful sight, the pack running together over the field.” Charlotte was radiant.

“Do you ever think of what we see? Things most folks never see. They see the tailpipe of the car in front of them.” Sister marveled at the patience of people for sitting in traffic as they shuttled to and from their jobs.

“We are very, very lucky. One of the things I try to impress upon the girls is how we have to work together to preserve farmland and wildlife. They’re receptive, for which I’m grateful.”

“You’re a good example,” Sister complimented her. “Do you ever regret being an administrator instead of faculty?”

“No. I really love being at the helm of our small ship.” Charlotte felt passionate about education, particularly at the secondary level.

Although many of her peers were climbing the ranks at major universities and some had already been named as presidents of smaller colleges, Charlotte felt fulfilled.

“Have you been having a good Christmas vacation?”

“I have. Carter had a few days off from the hospital. We drove up to D.C. to the National Gallery, to the Kennedy Center. I like being reminded of why I married him in the first place. He’s such fun, and I’m always intrigued by his observations. It’s that scientific mind of his.”

“I miss the girls.” Sister mentioned the Custis Hall girls who had earned the privilege of hunting with the Jefferson Hunt. “Tootie and Felicity e-mail me. Val has once.”

Bunny Taliaferro, riding instructor at Custis Hall, rigorously selected the toughest riders for foxhunting. The prettiest on horseback competed in the show ring, since there was high competition among the private academies. But the toughest, some of whom were on the show jumping team, foxhunted.

“They’re so buoyant, so full of life and dreams. They make me feel young again,” Charlotte beamed.

“Me, too, and I have more years on me than you,” Sister laughed. “Funny though, Charlotte, I feel younger than when I was young. I love life and I love my life. Sometimes, I feel light as a feather.”

“You look light as a feather. And you fool people. They think you’re in your fifties.”

“Now, Charlotte, that’s a fib, but I thank you. You never met my mother, but she grew younger as she grew older. Energy and happiness just radiated from her. Dad, too, but he died before Mother. She made it to eighty-six, and if she were alive today, the technology is such that she’d still be here. But I think of her every day, and I’m so glad I had that model. It must be difficult for people who grow up with depressed parents, or drunks or angry people. Makes it harder to find happiness because you haven’t lived with it.”

Walter Lungrun, riding behind them and a colleague of Charlotte’s husband, Carter, was head of Neurosurgery at Jefferson Regional Hospital. Riding with him was Jason Woods, a doctor in the oncology department; both men could hear them because the snow muffled the hoofbeats. “If you can’t be happy foxhunting, you can’t be happy, period.” Walter smiled.

“Hear, hear,” the riders agreed, toes and fingers throbbing with cold.

“Because of us.” Aztec believed riding cured most ills for people.

“Hound work, that thrills ’em,” Asa, the oldest dog hound in the pack, said with conviction.

As they neared the kennels Athena and Bitsy flew toward the barn.

“Mutt and Jeff,” Sister remarked.

Tedi Bancroft, her oldest friend, also in her seventies, laughed. “You know, there are generations that never heard of Mutt and Jeff.”

“Never thought of that—the things we know, silly things I guess, that younger people don’t know. Well, they have their own references.”

“References are one thing; manners are another. The boys still haven’t written their Christmas thank-you notes.” Tedi thought her grandsons lax in this department.

They really weren’t. She had forgotten how long it takes to become “civilized.”

“Tedi, they’re good boys.” Sister believed in the young. Her eyes followed the two owls. “I’ll tell you, girls, let’s stick together like Bitsy and Athena. A friend in need is a friend in deed.”

Up in the cupola, Bitsy, thrilled at her near miss and by what she’d heard inside pattypan forge, breathlessly relayed all to Athena.

“H-m-m,” was all Athena said.

“Let’s go back and see for ourselves.”