“Ma’am. You might wear your long Barbour today. Don’t want you getting the shivers before opening hunt.”
“Douglas, you’ll make someone a wonderful mother someday.” She laughed at him but went into the tack room and grabbed her coat along with a pair of string gloves. She loved Douglas. Teasing him made them both happy. He’d grown from a skinny kid with green eyes, beat up just about every day at school, into a broad-shouldered, curly-haired, beautiful young man with bronze skin. Douglas’s mother was white and his father black. He took the best from both.
Sister’s son, Raymond, died in a freak harvesting accident in 1974. He was fourteen years old and there wasn’t a day when she didn’t hear his voice, remember his infectious smile, and wish he was with her.
She spoke rarely of her son. One lives with one’s losses. The shock of it and then the subsequent grief had kept her numb for a year and then after that she was flat. She couldn’t think of another word but “flat.” Three years passed before she thought there might be joy in life but three things sustained her during those three years: her husband, Big Raymond; her friends; and her foxhunting. The former two provided love, the latter, structure and a sense of something far greater than human endeavor.
What was odd about Ray Junior’s death was it occurred in a year of the black fox. When Big Ray died in 1991, there was also a black fox. He made mention of it, gasping for breath with emphysema.
“Janie, black fox years are watershed years for us. Mother—”
He couldn’t finish his sentence but the black fox superstition was one of his mother’s cherished beliefs, right up there with transubstantiation. She said that great upheavals or the death of a family member were always heralded by a black fox. Mother Arnold declared that her grandmother, in her prime during the War between the States, swore that in 1860 the whole state of Virginia was full of black foxes. People had never seen so many.
Sister knew there was a black fox kit, half-grown, in the den near Broad Creek, running through her property. Given the apparition she’d seen the day before yesterday and this fact, she couldn’t suppress an involuntary shiver.
“I told you you’d get the shivers. Put a sweater on.”
“I’m not cold. But you know, Doug, I saw the damnedest thing and I can’t get it out of my mind. When Shaker and I walked back to the coop that Fontaine obliterated, I thought I saw the Grim Reaper on Hangman’s Ridge right by that haunted tree. Of course, in retrospect I realize I was probably hallucinating, I was so hungry, but still, the man was as clear as day and I looked away and looked back and he was gone.”
“Me, too.”
“You, too, what?” She sat on a tack trunk for a moment as Douglas exchanged the regular English leather reins for rubber ones.
“When I tracked down Archie, he was staring right up at the ridge and I saw whatever it was, too. I told Shaker. Don’t think he believed me.”
“Didn’t believe me either.”
He held the reins, the bridle hanging from the tack hook. “It’s a bad sign, Sister.”
“I know, but for whom?”
He shrugged. “Not us, I hope.”
She smiled. “You’re young. You’ll live a long, good life.”
“You seem young.” He laughed.
“Flattery, young man, will get you everywhere.” She stood up, slapped her knees as she rose, then called out to her horse, Lafayette, standing patiently in his stall.
“Lafayette, it’s going to be slick as an eel today.”
“I can handle it,”he bragged. “I can handle anything.”
She smiled as he whinnied, walking into his stall to rub his ears and chat with him.
“Blowhard.”Rickyroo, a hot thoroughbred in the adjoining stall, snorted.
Both Lafayette and Rickyroo were thoroughbreds but Lafayette at nine showed more common sense than Rickyroo at five, although Ricky would probably be a pistol at nine, still.
“Do you want to take the field or whip today?” Doug asked her.
“Take the field. After what happened Tuesday, I think I’d better be right there. Not that Bobby Franklin isn’t a good field master—he is. We’re lucky to have him on Tuesdays. Anyway, he was ahead, as he should have been, right behind the hounds, so this little contretemps happened behind him. No one was riding tail that day either.” It was common practice to have a staff person or trusted person ride at the rear of the field to pick up stragglers, loose horses, loose people.
“I heard that Fontaine is spending money in every store owned by a club member.”
“Fontaine is one of the most consistently underrated men you’ll ever meet. That’s the pity of it. He could have amounted to something.”
“Being master of Jefferson Hunt amounts to something.”
“Yes, it does, but I meant out there in the world. He’s a good-looking man, so talented in his field, but the money he inherited made a bum out of him in a way. Pulled his fangs.”
“Seems to do that to people.”
“I’m beginning to think if you want to destroy your children, let them inherit a lot of money.”
“Not my problem.” Douglas laughed.
“Money brings tremendous responsibility and worry. People think if they have a lot of money they won’t have any troubles. Well, any problem that can be fixed by money isn’t a problem.” She smiled. “Who knows, maybe you’ll wind up rich.”
Doug threw a white saddle pad on Lafayette. “I learn something from you every day. I’m going to remember that.”
“Scrape and save now. Learn everything you can from everybody. I promise you, you’ll use every single bit of it in this life.” She walked outside Lafayette’s stall, took her saddle and saddle pad off the saddle rack, and put them on his back. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m dispensing advice like a sob sister. You know, I think that damned whatever I saw and you saw has gotten under my skin. I’m afraid, Doug. You know I believe in fate, but it’s something else. Something vague.”
“I feel it, too.”
“Oh, well,” she sighed, “it’s going to be a wild morning. They’ll be popping off like toast and blaming me for going out on such a day.”
“Not like the old days.”
“No. The days of a master inviting only certain people to ride during cubbing season—long gone. You’ve got to invite them all, which makes it a holy horror because most of those folks haven’t a clue as to what we’re doing or why. Furthermore, I am considering cutting their tongues out. Actually, they’ve gotten much better about babbling in the hunt field. I’m being a crank.”
“No, just being a master.” He laughed.
Cubbing, a six-week to two-month period before formal hunting, existed to teach young hounds the whys and wherefores of hunting. It also served the same purpose for green horses and now, against most masters’ better judgment, green people. The most interesting part of cubbing, though, was it also taught the young foxes what was expected of them, how hounds ran, the calls of the horn, and where to look for cover if they couldn’t get back to their home den.
As older hounds brought along the young ones, so older foxes passed on their tricks to their children.
Douglas and Sister faced each other, checking out their gear.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
CHAPTER 4
As the drizzle turned into a steady rain Sister had ample time to repent her enthusiasm. The hack to the other side of Whiskey Ridge, twenty minutes, soaked her back because she hadn’t fastened tight the collar of her raincoat.
Carefully, Sister, Shaker, and Doug crossed Soldier Road, picking up the gravel road leading to the abandoned tobacco barn where they would first cast hounds.
The hounds, anchored by Cora, a mature female, behaved beautifully. Sister worried that the cooler temperature might encourage the young hounds to consider unplanned excursions but they didn’t. Even Dragon, by nature wild and flashy, kept to the middle of the pack.
Betty Franklin huddled in her trailer with Outlaw, her dependable, handsome quarter horse.
Jennifer, in the trailer tack room, called out, “Mom, I can’t find my heavy socks.”
“They’re hanging on the end of my nose,” Betty replied.
“Oh, Mom,” Jennifer grumbled.
Betty heard her rummaging around. So did Jennifer’s horse, Magellan.
“That kid can’t get organized. We go through this every time.”Magellan sighed.
“It’s because they wear clothes. They can never find them. Really, they should go naked,”Outlaw said.
“They’d get pretty cold.”Magellan laughed.“And it’s bad enough to see some of them fully clothed. I’m not sure I could stand seeing all that hairless flesh.”
“Found them!” A note of triumph blared from Jennifer.
“Where were they?” Betty asked.
“In the bottom of the feed bucket.”
“That’s an excellent place for them, my dear.”
Jennifer chose not to reply.
The staff and hounds gathered at the tobacco barn, black in the rain, as Betty and Jennifer emerged.
The only other people there were Marty Howard and Cody Jean Franklin.
Cody, on her own now, had bought an ancient two-horse trailer, paint peeling, and an equally ancient truck but both were serviceable. She made it to the meets on time. And she was glad to see her mother and sister.
Marty, borrowing Fontaine’s aluminum rig, not only wore a dark brown oilskin raincoat, she wore brown Gore-Tex pants as well, neatly tucked into her high rubber boots.
“Sister, I know this isn’t proper but . . .”
Sister waved her off. “It’s cubbing and it’s raining and let me know if the pants work.” To herself she thought that Marty would be like an olive in a Greek salad; the material was too slick. “Since there are so few of us and aren’t we surprised,” Sister laughed, “if Cody or Jennifer would like to whip, you are certainly invited to do so.”
“Yay.” Jennifer trotted over to Shaker for her orders.
“I’ll stay with you,” Cody said, for she often whipped-in and thought she’d enjoy riding with the master.
Douglas tipped his hat to the ladies, paused a second longer in Cody’s direction, and then moved a hundred yards to the north, as Shaker directed him to do. Shaker placed Jennifer behind him and Betty to his right.
“Ma’am.” Shaker, proper even in the rain, cradled his hat in his lap. A huntsman shouldn’t put his cap on his head until the master gives the signal to cast hounds.
“Oh, Shaker. I’m sorry. Of course we can move off.”
He nodded at the master, clapped his hat on his wet auburn curls, and said to his hounds, “Hounds ready?”
“Yes!”came the tumultuous reply.
“All right then, let’s be off.” Shaker didn’t blow his horn. As long as the hounds could hear his voice he kept his horn in his coat front between the second and third buttons. Besides, Sister loathed a noisy huntsman and whips. The quickest way to draw a reprimand from her was to blather.
The hounds moved ahead of Shaker. They lingered at the tobacco barn for an instant, a rich source of fox scent but it was fading fast.
“Come along now.”
Obediently they trotted across the meadow, slick to the edge of the woods. He urged them into the covert as he waited outside.
“He’s been here!”Dragon triumphantly barked.
Archie, older and pessimistic by nature, therefore the perfect anchor hound, sharply said,“Of course he’s been here, you twit. But he was here at three this morning. Before you run a cold scent look for a fresh one.”
“Besides, you’ve picked this up under a rotted log, Dragon. It will be washed away within two paces,”Cora, ever steady, gently said.
“Cora, can we really do anything today?”Diana, a gorgeous female, first-year entry, inquired of the leader.
Cora lifted her nose a moment.“Chances are we won’t get much. Pick up and put down kind of day. Scent for twenty yards and then nothing, but we must try. A good hound always tries.”
Diana put her sensitive nose down, moving away from the rotted log.
As they moved slowly, their tails, called sterns, were held upright.
Douglas, a bit ahead, peered down over the western side of Whiskey Ridge to the creek below, swollen with rain, high and swiftly rolling. Crossing it would be difficult.
Jennifer, inexperienced, impatient, pushed the hounds up too much from the rear.
Sister and Cody rode up to her. Cody was on Motorboat, happy to be out.
“Jennifer, let them work. They aren’t strung out.” Sister pointed to the pack carefully making good the ground, working well together.
“I’m sorry.”
“Honey, that’s how we learn.” Sister stopped and waited as Jennifer moved on at a walk. She listened intently, hearing only the patter of raindrops on leaves beginning to turn colors. She heard Lafayette’s and Motorboat’s breathing.
Cody, a fine rider, sat the thoroughbred–quarter horse cross with that grace so peculiar to her. She knew better than to talk when hounds were cast.
Sister turned to her and smiled as if to say, “That kind of day and I’m glad you’re here.”
Sister especially enjoyed the people who turned out regardless of conditions. Over the years they’d become her family, since her blood relations and her two Raymonds had died.
Archie, deeper in the woods, conferred with Cora:“Distinguishable but . . . ?”
“It’s all we’ve got and most likely all we’re going to get. You do the honors.”Cora confirmed his thoughts.
Archie lifted his head, wiggled his tail a bit.“Come along.”
“Old line,”Cora added in her distinctive contralto.
The other hounds called out in turn and then together, loping along behind Cora and Archie, who moved forward. If scent had been hot, Archie would have taken his usual position a bit like a safety in football, a defensive position. A hot scent even a puppy can find and make good but a scent such as this, fading fast yet distinguishable on the moss and underbrush, demanded a professional.
Archie and Cora worked side by side, running a few steps, then slowing to check and double-check. It would never do to overrun such a pathetic little trail.
Dragon, bored with the pace, decided he could do better off on the right. Besides, maybe he’d pick up something more potent. He had no sooner shot off about two hundred yards than a loud crack pierced the beating rain.
“Leave it!” Betty commanded, flicking her whip out one more time for effect. The crack worked like magic. It usually wasn’t necessary to touch the hound.
He scooted back to the pack.
“Settle, boy, because if you don’t, you’re going to get yourself in trouble and some of us, too,”Cora growled at him.
Dragon said nothing but ran alongside Dasher, his litter mate, who showed promise but could be easily influenced by his brother.
“Dragon, come up with me.”Archie curled his lip slightly.
A cowed Dragon did as he was told. The work was difficult and patience wasn’t one of his virtues, but Archie had grabbed him by the neck, throwing him down hard in the kennels after Tuesday’s hunt. He feared Archie, as would any hound with a grain of sense.
Sister and Cody trotted through the woods, the hounds in sight but well in front of them. Sister picked up the pace and soon was right behind Jennifer, who was right behind the hounds.
The hounds swung out in a big circle. Moving back to the tobacco barn and then picking up speed, they shot across Soldier Road and onto the low, broad, and long meadow between the two ridges. The great tree, enshrouded as though in a silver winding sheet, commanded Hangman’s Ridge.
They popped over a coop in the fence line and then headed toward the coop that Sister and Shaker had rep
aired—Fontaine’s coop, as they now thought of it. Once over that obstacle they continued at a trot through the thick woods.
The hounds moved faster.
“Fools.”Butch heard the hounds in the distance from the safety of his den.
“Should I give them a run?”
“Just because they’re dumb enough to get soaked doesn’t mean you should.”Butch scowled at his son, Comet.
“But they have to go out,”Inky half said, half questioned.“It’s their job.”
RMBrown - Outfoxed Page 3