Full Cry

by Rita Mae Brown

  A good hound cries, whines, howls when it sees the rest of the pack go to the draw pen. It’s like a quarterback being benched.

  Each branch and bough, the sunken lane, the top of the ridge, sparkled with a million tiny rainbows as the sun rose. First the snows were blue, then pink, then orange to scarlet, and finally white, with the rainbows dazzling everyone.

  Athena, wings close to her body, dozed in a blue spruce. Her nest wasn’t far, but she didn’t feel like going inside just yet. She opened one golden eye, peering down at the hounds and humans, then she closed it. Athena, over two feet high, occasionally worked with the foxes. As they flushed game on the ground, she’d swoop down and snatch up a mouse. She would sometimes tell the groundlings where mice, rabbits, and other creatures moved about. She didn’t make a habit of it, though. She preferred working alone.

  Sometimes Bitsy, the little screech owl, now residing in Sister’s barn, flew alongside her. Athena could tolerate Bitsy only until she let out one of her hideous screeches, which the little bird thought so melodious. Tin ear.

  Cora caught a whiff of Athena. No point mentioning it. Owl wasn’t game. And it wouldn’t do to get on the bad side of Athena.

  They walked a mile west, then turned back. The return was easier since they didn’t have to break snow.

  Asa moved up alongside Delia. “What do you think?”

  “They need us,” she answered. “If Sister and Shaker put in too many of the T litter, they’ll be toast. Those young’uns haven’t settled yet.”

  On hearing this, Trident couldn’t help but protest. “We’ve done really, really good.”

  “Oh? I recall during cubbing that you wanted to track a skunk.” Asa chuckled.

  “No fair. My first real hunt.” Trident, handsome, with unusually light eyes, didn’t appreciate the reminder.

  The other hounds giggled.

  “They love the snow,” Betty said, smiling, upon hearing the low chatter among the pack.

  “That they do. Much rather be out in this than those hot September mornings,” Sybil agreed.

  “I start at seven, and it’s boiling by eight.” Sister, on the front left corner, chimed in.

  “Summer in Virginia can stretch into November sometimes,” Shaker said.

  “Not this year.” Betty laughed. “I can’t remember this much snow. In 1969 we had a lot, or maybe we didn’t. Maybe I just remember it because it snowed like blazes on Easter.”

  “No one could get to church.” Sybil, too, remembered. She had been in grade school.

  “We’ve been lucky this year.” Sister paid a lot of attention to the weather. “This was our fourth year of drought. Without the wet fall and snow to date, I think we’d all be cooked this summer. My well has never run dry and Broad Creek has never run dry, but I think it would have happened this summer without this rain and snow.”

  “I remember the first time I traveled out west,” said Sybil. “Mom and Dad sent Nola and me to a dude ranch in Sheridan, Wyoming. Loved it. But that’s where I learned the history of the West is the history of the battle for water. They killed one another for it in the nineteenth century. Drought is a part of their history. Pretty rare here.”

  “Westerners kill one another with SUVs instead of six-guns.” Betty laughed.

  “That’s California.” Sybil smiled. “Wyoming, they drive trucks just like us.”

  “Beautiful place, parts of it.” Sister, like Sybil, loved the West, including the Canadian West. She bore a deep respect for Canadians.

  They turned into the kennels. Sister, Betty, and Sybil watched as the hounds bounded into the draw yard, to be separated there into the bitch yards and the dog yards.

  “Well?” Betty’s light eyebrows quizzically shot upward.

  “Given conditions, I think I’d better leave first entry in the kennels. It’s a lot to handle: all those people. I really shouldn’t have taken out those two couple for Christmas Hunt. I mean, even though the field is behind the hounds—God willing.” They laughed because dumb stuff does happen. “All the excitement is pretty overwhelming for a young hound.”

  “Our hounds are high. No doubt about that.” Sybil said this with pride. While a high pack is harder to handle, Sybil believed they showed much better sport, as did everyone else on staff.

  This was not a belief shared by every foxhunter. The four types of foxhound—American, English, Crossbred (a cross between the American and English hound), and the Penn-Marydel hound— reflected different philosophies of hunting, as well as adaptation to different climates and terrain.

  American hounds possessed high drive, sensitive temperaments, and good noses. They were often racy-looking, although the old American bloodlines might have heavy bones.

  Added to the hounds used for mounted hunting were foxhounds for foot hunting or night hunting: Walkers, Triggs, even Red-bones and Blueticks could do the job if trained for fox scent. These, too, were wonderful canines, each displaying special characteristics.

  Such a wealth of canines created passionate discussions about which hounds are best for what. Foxhunters and all Southerners learned as children that you can criticize a man’s wife and children before you can say word one about his hounds.

  Although loath to admit it, Sister, too, fell into that slightly fanatical category. She kept her mouth shut about it, but she was devoted, passionate, even rapturous about the American foxhound, especially those carrying the Bywaters bloodline. This didn’t mean she wouldn’t listen to other hound people, and she had ridden behind packs of other breeds that would have made any master proud. But she loved the American foxhound with her heart and soul.

  “Okay, boss,” Shaker called from the draw yard.

  The hounds, bellies full, retired to their respective runs for sleep or conversation.

  Sister, Betty, and Sybil joined Shaker in the small toasty kennel office. Sister sat on the edge of the desk, Shaker leaned against the refrigerator, Sybil and Betty perched on the old office chairs.

  “Coffee?” Shaker offered.

  “God, yes.” Betty rose and poured herself a cup from the eternally percolating pot. She blinked, realized she’d forgotten her manners, and handed the cup to Sybil, who laughed at her.

  “Okay, this is what I think. First year in the kennels. We can take all the second-year entry, and I’m still debating about our oldest hounds.” Sister thought a moment, then spoke a bit more rapidly. “Unless there’s a big change in the weather or injury, let’s take Delia, Asa, and the few older citizens. I don’t think we’re going to have a four-hour hunt in the snow on Thursday. I really don’t. And this will be their last High Holy Day; they need to retire after this season.”

  “I have dibs on Asa.” Sybil held up her hand.

  “After cubbing. I’ll need them with me to start our next year’s entry, but he’d be happy to grace your hearth.”

  “He’ll hunt,” Shaker mentioned.

  “Oh, well, he can hunt to his heart’s content. All the foxes at the farm will hear him coming.”

  They would indeed, for Asa had the voice of a basso profundo.

  “Do you want me to come over to the kennels?” Sybil inquired.

  “No. We’re hunting from your farm. Might as well stay there. We’ll meet you at the party wagon.” Sister called the hound trailer— a refitted horse trailer—the party wagon.

  “Hope it’s a good go.” Sybil’s eyes brightened.

  “Hope it’s a good year.” Betty laughed.

  “If we’re all together, we’re healthy, the hounds are healthy, it’s going to be a banner year.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Shaker held up his coffee mug.

  The others followed suit, touching one another’s mugs.

  CHAPTER 6

  Thursday morning, New Year’s Day, when Sister awoke at her accustomed five-thirty, a low cloud cover hinted more snow was on the way. Darkness enveloped the farm. The thermometer outside Sister’s bedroom window read thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit.

&nb
sp; When the sun rose two hours later, the cloud cover remained. This was going to be an interesting day: the ground was hard, icy in spots, and the snow hard packed to about a foot and a half. Sister could smell more moisture coming.

  In the winter most Virginia hunts meet at ten. As the earth tipped her axis and more light floods the rolling pastures and woodlands, that time is pushed up to nine, often by mid-February.

  New Year’s Hunt, however, begins at eleven: a concession to the rigors of braiding and the struggle to sober up for many. The later time also allowed the earth to warm a bit more, though today’s cloud cover held in some warmth.

  Later that morning, parked to the right of the covered bridge at Tedi and Edward Bancroft’s After All Farm, the hounds peered out of the party wagon. They saw some people blowing on fingers as they slipped on polished bridles, while others repaired unruly horse braids or tried for the umpteenth time to force their stock tie pin level across their bright white or ecru stock ties.

  The most fashionable of hunters, and this was unrelated to wealth, wore a fourfold tie on formal hunting days. Occasionally, they might wear a shaped tie, but on the High Holy Days, one wouldn’t dream of anything but the fourfold tie. For one thing, it looked better. For another, it kept one’s neck warmer. These good features did not make the tie any easier to work with. Many a fox-hunter expanded his or her vocabulary of abuse while fumbling.

  The High Holy Days required members and horses to look their best. In the old days of hunting when agricultural labor, indeed all labor, was less costly, people came to every formal hunt with their horses’ manes braided. They usually came with two horses. Their groom kept the second horse at the ready to be switched halfway through the hunt. Then, also, many hunts enjoyed a brief repast while members switched horses. Those days had vanished.

  Most foxhunters worked for a living. They prepared their horses themselves, and braiding sucked up time as well as patience. At the Jefferson Hunt Club, braiding was now required only for Opening Hunt, Thanksgiving Hunt, Christmas Hunt, and New Year’s Hunt. Many older hunt clubs wished their members to braid for a meet with another hunt, but few could enforce this. It was seen as a tip of the cap to the visiting hunt, a form of respect and welcome.

  With the exception of Tedi, Edward, Sybil, Crawford, Marty, Sister, Betty, and Shaker, everyone present had braided their own horses. As master and huntsman, Sister and Shaker had Lafayette and Hojo braided by Jennifer Franklin, who also did her mother’s horse, Outlaw. Of course she held it over her mother. At seventeen Jennifer could be forgiven.

  On New Year’s Hunt, Sister Jane wore her shadbelly: a black swallowtail coat, exactly as one sees in the nineteenth-century prints. The canary points of her vest peeked out underneath the front, perfectly proportioned. Her top hat glistened, the black cord fastened to the hook inside the coat collar in back. Her breeches, a thin buckskin, were much like what Washington himself wore when he hunted. Over the years they had softened to a warm patina: once canary, they were now almost buff.

  For years, people could no longer find buckskin. Then Marion Maggiolo, proprietor of Horse Country in Warrenton, found someone in Europe to make them. One pair of breeches could last a lifetime, justifying the stiff price of six hundred and some odd dollars.

  For Christmas, the members had all chipped in and bought Sister a new pair of buckskin breeches. Betty drove up with her to Warrenton to be properly fitted, and Sister couldn’t wait for their arrival.

  Crawford, of course, flashed about in his impeccably cut scarlet weaselbelly. His properly scarlet hat cord, a devil to find these days, hung from his top hat, the crown of which was about a half inch higher than that worn by a lady. Both top hats slightly and gracefully curved into the brim. Like a red hat cord for a man, a lady’s proper top hat was a deuce to find. Given the difficulty in finding the real thing—it could take years—many women gave up, donning dressage top hats. No one was critical, and although they didn’t look quite as lovely, they still looked good.

  Leather gloves were soft canary or butter. Along with leather gloves, a pair of string gloves were under the horse’s girth. These warm gloves helped riders keep the reins from slipping through their fingers if it rained or snowed. Then, if necessary, riders would tuck their leather gloves in their pocket or under their girth and pull out the string gloves, which were brilliant white or cream.

  Men with colors wore boots with a tan top. The ladies with colors wore boots with a patent leather black top. Everyone else wore butcher boots, usually with the Spanish cut—meaning the outside part of the boot covering the calf was longer than the inside portion. Butcher boots had no tops. All boots were polished to such a feverish degree that one could see one’s reflection.

  The spurs, hammerheads or Prince of Wales, also sparkled, even with cloud cover.

  Fabulous as people looked—some wearing hunt caps, a few others in derbies, which were proper with frock coats—the horses trumped them all. Chestnuts gleamed like flame, and bays glowed with a rich patina. Seal brown horses and blood bays, not often seen, caught everyone’s eye. A blood bay is a deep red with black mane and tail. It’s a beautiful color, as is a flea-bitten gray or a dappled gray. A few of these were present, as well as some of those dark brown horses that appear black to the human eye.

  Henry Xavier had mounted his paint, Picasso—a large warmblood—to account for his increasing weight. Dr. Walter Lungrun was so resplendent in his tails, black rather than scarlet, that women swooned when they beheld the blond doctor. He was on a new horse he’d purchased in the summer, Rocketman, a big-boned, old-fashioned thoroughbred bay with a zigzag streak down his nose. Clemson, Walter’s tried and true, went out with him on informal days.

  The horses were bursting with excitement, for the morning was cool and they liked that. In many ways, they reflected their owners’ skill, status in the hunt field, and, in some cases, dreams. Hunt fields always have those members who are overmounted, members who want desperately to be dashing on a gorgeous horse. Usually they’re dashed to the ground. Sooner or later, such folks realize what kind of horse they truly need. Pretty is as pretty does. If not, they stalk away from foxhunting with grumbles about how dangerous it is and how stupid their horse is. It’s not the horse that’s stupid.

  Hunting is dangerous. However, the adrenaline rush, the challenge, the overwhelming majesty of the sport, the sheer beauty of it get in a rider’s blood. Those who foxhunt can’t imagine living without it; even the danger adds spice.

  Life itself is dangerous, but millions of Americans in the twenty-first century are so fearful of it that they retreat into cocoons of imagined safety. Small wonder obesity is a problem and psychologists are thriving.

  Humans need some danger, need to get their blood up.

  It was up at eleven. The field was large even with the cold. Seventy-one riders faced the master.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the hounds and I wish you a Happy New Year. We wish you health, prosperity, and laughter. May you take all your fences in style, may your foxes be straight-necked, and may your horse be one of your best friends.

  “Shaker, Betty, Sybil, and I are grateful that so many of you have turned out, looking as though you’ve stepped out of a Snaffles’ drawing, on this cold day. The footing will be dicey, but you’ve ridden through worse.

  “Tedi and Edward invite us all to breakfast at the main house after the hunt. Do remember to thank them for continuing the wonderful tradition of New Year’s Hunt here at After All Farm.

  “Let’s see what the fox has in store for us.” She looked to Shaker, cap in hand. “Hounds, please.”

  He clapped his cap on his head, tails down (for he was staff). Whistling to the pack, he turned along Snake Creek, which flowed under the covered bridge.

  Huntsman and hounds rode up the rise, passed the gravesite of Nola Bancroft, Tedi and Edward’s daughter, who had perished in her twenties. She was buried alongside her favorite mount, Peppermint, who, by contrast, lived to thirty-four. This pea
ceful setting, bound by a stonewall, seemed especially poignant covered in the snow.

  Betty, first whipper-in, rode on the left at ten o’clock. Sybil, second whipper-in, rode at two o’clock. The side on which they rode did not reflect their status so much as it reflected where Shaker wanted them on that particular day at the particular fixture. He usually put Betty on the left though.

  Sam Lorillard and Gray also rode out today. How exciting to have Gray back in the field. Crawford had requested Sam to ride as a groom, and Sister had given permission.

  The edges of Snake Creek were encrusted with ice, offering scant scent unless a fox had just trotted over. Shaker moved along the low ridge parallel to the creek. An eastern meadow about a quarter of a mile down the bridle path held promise of scent. The sun, despite being hidden behind the clouds, might have warmed the eastern meadows and slopes.