Рита Браун - Full Cry

The hounds drew closer. The fox paid not a bit of mind. Only when Cora soared over the old coop, her form flawless and floating, did he bestir himself.

“Ta-ta,” he called to Betty and Jim.

Sister saw only Magellan’s tail and hindquarters as the horse took the stout log jump at the southwestern end of the field.

Hounds streamed over the frost turning to dew, the subdued winter green of the grasses underneath shining through.

Although it was only in the high thirties, Sister sweated underneath her shadbelly. Silk long johns stuck to her skin, a trickle of sweat zigzagged down her left temple. She was running hard. She was going to run harder.

Keepsake, in his glory, would have been only too thrilled to pass Gunpowder. However, he knew to stay behind as huntsman and mount flew over the logs. It irked him all the more since he thought he could outrun Gunpowder. He tired of hearing the gray thoroughbred, a former steeple-chaser, deride Keepsake because he was a thoroughbred/ quarter horse cross. Keepsake knew he had the stuff. Not all thoroughbreds were snobs, but Gunpowder was.

The field stayed well together, a testimony to their riding abilities; it would have been easy to get strung out on such a day. The footing started out tight but was getting sweaty in spots.

Ahead, another fence line hooked into the old three-board fence at a right angle. Sister took the log jump, then turned sharply left to soar over a stiff coop. You had to hit that second jump just right, which meant you had to put your right leg on your horse’s the instant his or her hooves touched the earth from the first jump.

Sister knew she’d lose a few people at this obstacle, or they’d go past the second jump and wait for the rest of the field to clear before taking it. If a person misses a jump or his or her horse refuses, hunting etiquette demands he or she go to the end of the line. The exception to this is staff. Should a staff horse refuse a jump, which can happen, the staff person, who always has the right of way, may try again. If he or she can’t get the animal over, a person in the field, usually Sister, gives them a lead. Now and then, even the best of staff horses will take a notion to refuse.

The red flew straight as an arrow, not doubling back, ducking into a den, or even cutting right, then left. He seemed intent on providing the best sport of the last two months. Before Sister knew it, they had run clean through Alice Ramy’s farm. Alice waved from the window. They flew on to the next farm.

Down a large oval depression twenty feet below, with rock outcroppings and roughly forty yards around, the hounds suddenly stopped. This low land rested above a narrow, strong-running creek, part of a mostly underground creek. The somewhat higher ground in this shrubby area was defended by an outraged badger.

Badgers aren’t supposed to be living in central Virginia, but here he was, and he was not happy. The first thing that fanned all twenty-five pounds of his bad mood was a damned coyote who had earlier watched him as he dug into a tempting rat hole. When the rat had popped out the other side, the coyote nabbed him, broke his back, and walked off. Didn’t even bother to run. The badger, not fast, gave chase, hopeless though it was. So he had to settle for a morning meal of mice while he dreamed the gray squirrel chattering above would fall out of the enormous naked willow. Squirrels delighted his taste buds. But that wasn’t bad enough. Not an hour later, an extremely rude fox ducked into his den, beheld the badger with no small surprise, turned around, and blasted right out again.

Now, a pack of hounds, and, worse—people on horseback—were at his front door. Well, he’d tell them a thing or two at the lip of his den, of course. This day had been too much, plucked his last nerve.

“Get out!”

The speechless hounds stood stiff-legged as the badger continued his stream of uncomplimentary conversation.

“What is that?” Tinsel inhaled an unusual odor.

“Only ever seen one other one.” Delia wished Shaker would give them an order. “Badger. They’re powerful. Mostly live farther north, but they’re moving in, I guess.”

Dragon lifted his head: the coyote scent proved stronger, heavier than the fox scent, even though the fox had so recently been there. Dragon wasn’t known for his patience. He walked away from the badger and put his nose down the rat hole.

“Let’s go.” He bellowed, taking off, half the pack taking off with him.

Diana shouted after her brother. “Wait!”

Diana and Cora hurried to the spot. Cora shook her head. “Coyote.”

Shaker knew his hounds. Cora did not follow the half that shot off with Dragon. Instead, she, Diana, Asa, Dasher, and others patiently moved a bit away from the still-fuming badger, casting themselves as good hounds do.

“Here he is. Here he is, that devil!” Asa got a nose full of fox scent first.

He opened, and the other half of the pack went with him, including Tinsel, who’d had the great good sense not to follow the impetuous, arrogant Dragon.

Shaker hesitated a second. Should he blow the errant half back and risk blowing back the hounds he knew to be right, or should he just blow the rapid series of notes— three short notes in succession—three or four times to try and bring the others back to Cora and Asa? He elected the latter, clapped his leg to Gunpowder, blowing as he galloped.

The splinter half bolted on Sybil’s side. She heard the horn moving farther away in the opposite direction, so she knew what her job was. Mounted on Colophon, a purchase in the summer to augment her hunter string, she hit the afterburners. She’d have to draw alongside Dragon, a little in front, and reprimand him. If that didn’t work, harsher measures would.

Luckily, the hounds chased over a meadow, so she wasn’t ducking trees in the woods. Colophon, sixteen hands, a bay thoroughbred and fast, streaked, his lovely head stretched out. Height in horses is measured in hands; one hand equals four inches.

“Dragon, leave it!” Sybil commanded.

“Make me!” he challenged her.

She cracked her whip, which brought the other hounds to a halt, but not Dragon. She again drew alongside the speedy hound, pulled out her .22 pistol with ratshot, and fired a blast on his rear end that he would never forget.

“Leave it!”

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” he shrieked.

His cries of pain at the tiny birdshot pellets—foxhunters called them ratshot—scared the other hounds. If they’d had a mind to disobey after pulling up for the crack of the whip, the thought now vanished.

“Come along.” Sybil said this with authority. They obediently turned, following her.

A mile later, moving at a canter, she heard Shaker again blow the rapid series of three notes, three or four times, on his horn. Of course, the hounds with her had heard long before that.

“Go to him,” she ordered. Those hounds couldn’t get away fast enough. It would be a cold day in hell before anyone in that group elected to listen to Dragon again. Whether Dragon had learned his lesson remained to be seen. His many gifts were sullied by a hard head.

Sister heard the ratshot blast after the whip crack as she thundered along. The crack of the whip, the tip moving faster than the speed of sound, sounded like a sharp rifle report. Depending on the humidity, it could be heard for miles.

Within ten minutes the coyote hunters swept past her, joining the main pack up ahead.

All on, Sister thought to herself. Thank God.

As Keepsake trotted through a wide creek, she noted spicebush all along the banks and realized she was now at Chapel Cross, an estate four miles southwest of her place. They were still running hard.