Рита Браун - Outfoxed

The check lasted five minutes, which helped the field. Sister counted heads. She’d started with sixty-nine and was down to sixty-two. Jennifer stayed just behind Crawford and Martha. Sister winked at her.

People reached down, feeling their girths. A few tightened them. Many reached for their flasks. Nothing like refreshment or what some members called Dutch courage.

“I’ve got a line all right but it’s a different fox,” Diana remarked to her steadier brother, Dasher.

The rest of the pack trotted over to her. They checked it out.

“I can’t pick up Patsy. She’s slipped us somehow, so we might as well go on this. Target, I’d say.” Cora thought a moment. “Just so you young ones know, it’s always better to stay on the hunted fox but Patsy’s given us the slip, so—it’s Thanksgiving hunt; let’s put on a show.”

“Follow me,” St. Just cawed overhead.

“Keep your nose to the ground. I’ll keep an eye on St. Just,” Cora commanded them.

“He hates Target. We can trust him,” Dragon said.

“Oh yes, and he’ll run us all into an oncoming truck as long as it takes Target, too. Trust your senses and me before you trust him,” Cora loudly told all of them. “Now come on. Scent is holding.”

Hounds moved along the creek, then drifted away into woods through some thick underbrush while Sister and the field kept on the edges, crowding along a deer trail.

Sister could see Betty, since leaves had fallen off the trees in the blizzard. Betty moved along; Outlaw’s ears pricked forward, since he could hear the hounds better than she. She let him pick the way.

Hounds burst out of the thicket, hustled along the deer path, then loped into a neatly clipped hay field, a stupendous one hundred acres of rolling land.

The temperature rose slightly; the tops of the grass blades swayed, the frost turning to water, the wind gentle but insistent from the west.

Hounds, in full cry, stretching out to their full length, flew across those one hundred acres in the blink of an eye. Cody was on the right border of the field; her mother was on the left; Doug was ahead, where the edge of the beautiful fields rolled into another farm road, cutover acres on the other side. Shaker stayed with his hounds, a wide grin on his face, his seat relaxed in the saddle. He could have been sitting in a rocking chair.

Target, just out of sight, headed straight through the cutover acres, making certain to make use of any toppled timbers. He knew the hounds could move through them easily but the debris would slow the field.

By the time Sister, first flight, and then Bobby with the hilltoppers picked their way through the cutover acres, Target curved back, running parallel to the fence line along the hay fields. Halfway down the fence line he climbed up on the top rail and sped along, jumping down at the corner, where he swerved across the creek-bottom fields, crossed the paved highway, and lightly trotted halfway up Hangman’s Ridge, where he surveyed the panorama from a monumental boulder jutting out from the ridge.

Cora led the way. Doug pulled up at the highway to slow traffic. As soon as Betty saw him she waved him on, for it was important for Doug to stay in front of the hounds. She took over the traffic cop job. Next came Shaker, the bulk of the pack before him, moving together in good order and on the scent, slowed somewhat by Target’s tricks, especially his jaunt along the fence. But Cora, wise, kept her nose to the ground until she found the spot where he’d launched off the fence.

One hundred and fifty yards behind Shaker rode Sister, Lafayette’s big stride effortlessly eating up the acres. The trailing ribbons on Sister’s cap danced in the breeze; her patent-leather-topped boots caught the light that pierced through the lifting silvery haze. Immediately behind her rode Martha Howard, a surprise to her as well as others as she moved right by them, but Martha, adrenaline banishing her normal fears, just this once wanted to ride in the master’s pocket. Behind her the others spread out, Crawford not far behind, since Czapaka, although not the fastest horse, had a big, comfortable stride. Jennifer was immediately behind Crawford. Walter Lungrun, relying on athletic ability more than skill, was behind them. The remainder of the field was spread out.

They jumped the post and rail near the highway, looked left and right, then sped across, jumped the double coops into the bottomlands, striking straight for Hangman’s Ridge.

By now the field had covered two and a half miles. Horses and humans were limbered up.

Target admired the sight before him. Then, mindful of Cora’s speed and that of the insufferable Dragon, he hopped off the boulder, cut down the side of the ridge, crossed the silvery hay field on the back side, dashing into the woods, making sure to scramble over Fontaine’s coop.

Once in the woods he put on the afterburners, streaking toward the tip of the ravine. He’d covered another mile in less than five minutes over uneven terrain. As he looked down into the ravine he considered how best to trouble the hounds.

Comet walked out of the woods. “Target, are you heading down?”

Target thought if the young gray had been human he would have rolled up a cigarette pack in his T-shirt sleeve. “Yes. You?”

“Thought I’d walk along the edge here and duck into those rocks at the end. I’ve been eating the corn trail. I didn’t expect hounds to get here so fast.” He indicated the large rock outcropping with the ledge looming out of sight at the far end of the ravine. Holly bushes and mountain laurel covered the folds of land leading water down to the creek below. Enormous oaks, hickories, and walnuts, spared from logging by their inaccessible location, gave the place a magical air. Chinquapins dotted the upper rim, their bundles resembling baby chestnuts, a light spiky green.

“Let’s make them crazy.” Target grinned. “See that den there?” He headed over to an abandoned groundhog den. “Let’s go in together. I’ll take the exit just under the edge of the ravine and you leave by the path heading back toward the hog’s back. The death jump.” Target added, “They’ll split for sure. That will make the whips work up a sweat. Ha. Sister laid the corn trail and she intends for the pack to split. A painful thing for a master, so you know it’s—vital.”

Eagerly both males zipped into the groundhog den, moving through the central living quarters.

Target sniffed. “Groundhogs have no sense of aesthetics.”

Comet didn’t reply. He thought the old den was fine although he’d have to pull out the old grass left behind.

At the fork underground, Target went left and Comet turned right.

“Good luck,” Comet called as he wriggled out into the pale sunlight, filtering through low clouds.

“Ditto,” the big red called back from the tunnel, his voice echoing. He emerged just under a pin oak, half of its roots clinging to the rim of the ravine, the other half securely in deep ground. Down he slithered, heading toward the creek. Comet, having the easier path but the more dangerous open one, ran hard to the hog’s back, flattened and crawled under, making sure to leave lots of scent under the jump, then he crawled out, barreled across the high meadow, ducked under the three-board fence at the back side to scramble over the moss-covered rock. Then, feeling devilish, instead of dipping into a den just below the flat rocks he made a big semicircle back into the same high meadow and headed across to the western woods on the other side, blew through those, entering the hay fields leading toward the kennels. He screeched to a halt at the kennel.