Hounded to Death

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Any other thoughts?”

  A long silence followed, “Maybe horses. She found something bad. Some of those people are so rich they could have hired a professional to take her out, know what I mean?”

  “Yes. Arthur, thank you for this.”

  “Thank you for being a modifying influence on Ben Sidell. It’s possible to interpret the law too harshly.” He tipped back his head and roared.

  She laughed with him. “Arthur, truer words were never spoken.”

  CHAPTER 25

  All the mornings of the world seemed reflected in the morning of September 13. The sweet air carried a hint of coolness. The rim of the sun peeked over the horizon in the east. Night hunters returned to their lairs, nests, and dens. Day hunters awakened, along with every rooster in central Virginia.

  Sister, walking along on Rickyroo, thought her heart would burst through her body. She never felt more alive than when foxhunting. The cares of the man-made world vanished as once again she touched the fingertips of the gods.

  Behind her rode sixty-seven people. They’d arisen at four or five in the morning, depending on how far they lived from Skidby. They’d fed, groomed horses, if lucky, perhaps grabbed something for themselves.

  Jefferson Hunt members prided themselves on their turnout. Cubbing allowed more individual expression. Kasmir wore a splendid bespoke tweed, a tan herringbone. A creamy silk stock tie with tiny dots of red was immaculately folded, and a red silk handkerchief peeked out from his breast pocket. But everyone had the wisdom to select colors that showed them to good advantage while staying within the bounds of hunting fashion.

  Sister turned to look behind her as she trotted over a pasture shimmering with dew. Glints of silver and gold appeared as the light touched the grass. Perfect, she thought. This moving tableau had been enjoyed by countless Virginians over the last three centuries. When those departed souls rode out on mornings such as this, they surely felt that life was meant to be lived full gallop. Sister had the sense to be thankful.

  Hounds, sterns up, fed off the emotions of their huntsman, but they, too, could sense the mounting anticipation from the field. A new fixture added to their high spirits.

  As Shaker and Sister discussed, they’d brought experienced hounds, although Giorgio had slipped into the draw pen somehow, managing to get by the head count, too. Occasionally this happens. Shaker couldn’t allow the youngster to sit in the trailer howling his head off. Giorgio packed in during morning walks and had shown promise at the fox pens, so he might as well hunt.

  Rickyroo, opening his nostrils wide, called out, “I can beat any horse out here today.”

  Kilowatt, Shaker’s mount, whinnied back, “Dream on.”

  Barry, riding next to Gray, commented, “Makes a man feel twenty again.”

  Kasmir, directly behind them, remarked, “I’ll settle for thirty.”

  People usually didn’t talk in the field, for Sister just wouldn’t have it, but a bit of chat on the way to the first cast wasn’t the greatest of sins.

  Mitch Fisher rode behind Tedi and Edward Bancroft. They asked him if he wanted to move ahead of them but he declined. The Bancrofts most always were right behind Sister. Beautifully mounted, they had been riding together for over fifty years, and few people could ride harder or better. As this was the first time at Skidby, Mitch’s desire to be in the forefront was understandable. He, too, had labored over his turnout, surprising everyone by wearing a bow tie with his tweed. Nothing against it, and the regimental colors looked good on him—which, of course, he knew.

  A half mile from the house, away from the paddocks where Mitch and Lutrell’s yearlings were frolicking, Shaker cast hounds into a light moist west wind.

  Sister felt the slight change in the air. Clouds would be rolling in within the hour. Her bones proved far more reliable than the Weather Channel.

  A crease in the land hid a small creek surrounded by dense brush with wild roses entwined throughout and a few large hickories and oaks on either side. Good covert to start.

  “Lieu in there,” Shaker called out, then blew the notes to reinforce the message.

  In dashed the pack of twenty-four couple hounds, including Giorgio, who hopped up and down like a kangaroo.

  “Will you keep your paws on the ground?” Trudy admonished the handsome young dog hound.

  As Trudy was a third-year hound, Giorgio put his nose down, trying to do right.

  Betty on the left and Sybil on the right noticed, along with Shaker, that sterns began to wave just a wee bit. Soon the sterns moved like a rudder in current.

  “Red!” Dreamboat called out.

  As this hound was only in his second year, Cora checked it.

  Asa came over, put his nose down, then lifted his head along with Cora and the curtain was raised.

  Rickyroo’s ears swept forward, for he spied the healthy, glistening, red dog fox scoot out from the point of the covert.

  Sister, knowing to trust a true hunting horse, followed Rickyroo’s gaze and let out a deep “Tally ho!”

  Shaker, down near the fold of the land, couldn’t see the point, but if the master gave a holler, he knew it was good. On the other hand, field members in their excitement had been known to tally-ho cats, squirrels, and the occasional groundhog.

  As hounds, at the moment of viewing, were not behind their fox, Sister was correct in calling out. If they’d had their noses down, on the line, she would have kept quiet. Never bring up a hound’s head.

  Diana, on hearing her master’s voice, knew they’d burst their fox clean out of the covert. “Come on. Step on it.”

  The whole pack sang as one, the ancient sound bouncing back off the ridges toward the west.

  In the field, shoulders snapped back, heels dropped down, and reins were picked up a bit if slack. Chins up, eyes forward, and they were off.

  The red, although not accustomed to being hunted by a pack, was mature. He’d eluded larger animals before. This time he had to outwit a number of them but, confident in his abilities, he scorched straight up from the point of the covert, across the pasture, and then turned eastward, winds blowing his scent away from hound noses.

  This ruse bought him only a few seconds’ time, for the dew held what scent there was on his pads. As the pack whirled five hundred yards behind him, catching his line again, he realized he’d better get out of the open, so he turned on the afterburners and, like a Formula One Ferrari, he zoomed for the woods.

  A new zigzag jump in the wire tensile fence line was the only way into the woods. The gate was a half mile away, so Bobby Franklin and his posse of Hilltoppers burnt the wind getting there. There were times when Bobby and second flight ran harder and faster than first.

  Betty had already cleared the zigzag as she pushed up to her ten-o’clock position. Sybil had negotiated a coop down in the corner of the fence, so she was also out front. Shaker cleared the fence next, and Sister was cleanly over one minute later.

  The red ran a tight circle in a patch of running cedar. That fouled his scent briefly but the older hounds knew this trick, so they cast themselves on all sides of the large patch to find out where he’d come out.

  “Here,” Ardent called.

  “Devil take them!” the fox said, as he ran straight for the deeper creek, a thirty-foot expanse. He launched off a fifteen-foot bank, hit the water, and swam to the other side. Then he ran alongside the creek, turned, and swam back across, blowing through heavy covert thanks to the fact that he was smaller than the hounds. He was heading back to his den, and if they closed again he knew where he could drop them—or hoped so, anyway.

  Hounds barreled to the spot where the fox jumped into the creek and everyone except Giorgio flew over that bank without a second’s hesitation. They went under, came back up, and swam for the opposite bank.

  “That’s scary,” the young entry wailed.

  “Come on, you weenie. Either you’re a foxhound or you’re a cur!” taunted Pickens, second year and feeling full of himself.<
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  Shaker came up to the spot first. He trotted along the bank to find a better place to jump in, dropping only six feet instead of fifteen. The water splashed up but his boots didn’t fill. Kilowatt, water halfway up his legs, surged forward, and Shaker clambered out on the other side. That, too, was a bit steep but a huntsman always tries to stay with his forward hounds. Of course, in Jefferson Hunt territory, there were times when Jesus Christ himself couldn’t have ridden with the forward hounds.

  The pack picked up the red’s line, right to where he’d jumped back into the creek. As hounds hit the water again, Sister came up to the creek.

  She reined in Rickyroo, sat, and watched hounds swim back.

  Giorgio came up to her. “I don’t like the water.”

  “Young’un, go to them.” She spoke to him with warmth.

  The sound of her voice instantly made him feel better, and since the pack was now swimming back across he could meet them on this side. So he rushed down to the place where they’d emerge. The most tantalizing odor curled into his lovely black nose.

  “He came out here!” Giorgio said and damned if he didn’t run the line through the heavy underbrush, pushing forward, heedless of the thorns.

  Diddy and Delight, right out of the water and immediately behind Diana, said to each other, “Shit, there’ll be no living with him now.”

  The three girls hurried to the place where Giorgio opened. They opened too, and as hounds came out of the water, some not even bothering to shake, they ran up to Giorgio. Tillie, the slight yellow spotted hound Mo Schneider bred, was right in there doing yeoman’s work.

  Shaker, riding back out of the creek, figured out there was no way through the covert.

  “Huntsmen!” he bellowed.

  The riders on the trail backed into the woods, not easy in some places, so Shaker could pass through with their horses’ heads facing him, not their hindquarters. One lash from those hind hooves could break a huntsman’s leg if it found its target. It could also hurt the huntsman’s horse, and good huntsmen’s horses aren’t easily found and made. It takes special boldness to negotiate all the obstacles first and to hear the horn blowing over those sensitive equine ears.

  Shaker flew through and then Sister came behind. Each field member fell into line as the rider before came back out onto the trail. This maneuver, so important to foxhunting, is rarely well executed, today being no exception. A hapless rider, not able to hold his horse, shot out right in front of the master.

  “Go forward,” ordered Sister, having been in this situation before.

  The person at least had the sense to obey and not try to wedge his horse back into the woods. So he galloped in front of the master until they came back to the zigzag jump. He turned to the side, Sister sailed over, and he waited until his turn into the line, thinking he’d done the right thing. Given the tight quarters, he should have taken the jump before the master and then gotten out of the way. As it was, some horses balked at seeing another horse standing there and then had to go to the end of the line. This rankled the rider. Finally Ronnie Haslip called up to the new member, “Come back with me. You’re spooking horses.” So both men slid along the line, with Ronnie trying in few words to explain what the fellow should have done.

  It was already out of Sister’s mind as she and Rickyroo charged over the pasture, affording them another view of their quarry with the pack closing and together.

  “Come on, boy, get into the covert,” Sister whispered to herself.

  Rickyroo answered, “He will.”

  Sure enough, the red hit the covert and popped into his den, where he had to consider this new event. Over time he would give it a lot of thought.

  All the hounds crowded the den. Shaker dismounted, threw Kilowatt’s reins over his head, and fought his way into the covert. The sight of all the hounds surrounding an impressive piece of fox habitation, a big pile of bones and feathers off to the side of the entrance, was worth the scratches and thorns which always managed to embed themselves in his face.

  He blew the wavy notes of Gone to Ground, patted each head, and walked out, again fighting what he hadn’t pulled down on the way in.

  Sister, next to Kilowatt, held the horse’s reins.

  Shaker looked up, took the reins, and said, “Not much of a housekeeper.”

  They laughed, then turned northwest as the cloud cover was coming down, a blanket of deep rich gray with streaks of cream.

  They stayed out for another hour, picked up a gray fox, enjoyed another good run, a big figure-eight, then turned back to the house and the sumptuous breakfast awaiting them.

  The only fly in this ointment was that Giorgio wouldn’t give up a line he had found, and off he ran.

  The breakfast, a triumph, capped a perfect morning. Sister, crowded with people, couldn’t tell who was coming and who was going. After forty-five minutes she did see Barry come in for the breakfast, wearing another tweed. This, too, if one is being strict, is proper. You don’t wear your hunting coat to the breakfast since it may be muddy and plastered with thorns, importing the smell of horse sweat as well as your own.

  Sister wore a light green tweed, not the jacket she hunted in. She noticed that most people had changed.

  “Good on them.” She smiled inwardly.

  “What a way to christen Skidby!” Barry came over just as Gray reached Sister and handed her a tonic water with lime.

  Sister often never made it to the table. Occasionally she was so famished she had to ask people to give her a moment to eat. Then they could talk.

  “What a morning!” Barry held up his drink.

  All three clinked glasses.

  A cheer went up when Shaker, Betty, and Sybil finally walked in, having gotten up all the hounds but Giorgio. In American hunts, servants eat with members. Very often in the British Isles, the distinction between servants and members keeps them apart socially. Shaker didn’t care about all that. He usually missed breakfasts because he wanted to get the hounds back. Sister brought back the horses.

  But today was special and he knew Sister would want him to say a few words to Mitch and Lutrell personally.

  He found Lutrell and thanked her. He didn’t see Mitch, so he grabbed a ham sandwich, a whole fat sandwich, not a ham biscuit, wrapped it in a napkin, and pushed his way through to Sister.

  “Shaker, well done.” Sister kissed him on the cheek.

  Barry shook his hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t kiss you.”

  Shaker laughed and Gray clapped him on the back. “Me neither, but if I had to kiss a man, I’d kiss you. You did a great job today.”

  “Thank you.” Shaker smiled, truly happy with the morning. “Boss, I can’t find Mitch to make my manners. I need to take hounds home. I’ll come back for Giorgio. But would you blow for him a few times before you leave?”

  “I’ll do better than that; I’ll stay and hitch a ride home with someone. Betty can drive the rig back and Lorraine can help her in the barn; I don’t think she’ll mind.”

  The breakfast kept going, turning into a party. But an hour and a half later, no Mitch was in sight yet.

  Lutrell began to worry; Sister reassured her.

  “I’m going out to look for a hound. With all these people, he’s probably been in and out of the house and we haven’t noticed. But I’ll look for him, too.”

  Sister walked outside, waving her goodbyes, and blew the horn. In the distance, northwest, she heard Giorgio. Light drizzle started.

  Skidby had good farm roads. She went back in the house and asked Lutrell if she could borrow the farm jeep.

  A minute later she cranked up the iconic vehicle, which had been giving service since World War II, and drove northwest. Weather often came in from that direction, and soon the drizzle had become a light rain.

  She stopped, rolled down the window—no fancy buttons on this machine—and blew the horn. Giorgio answered, but he was young and confused. The answer carried worry.

  She put the jeep in second and drove on
. As the road smoothed out, she popped into third. As she gained attitude she downshifted again. Ahead of her, now visible through the silver veil of rain, were the Skidby caves.

  She stopped and blew again. Giorgio was up somewhere behind the caves.

  Putting the jeep in creep gear, she climbed higher, the road now rockier. She noticed Mitch’s handsome stag-handled crop on the front seat, so he must have been driving the jeep on coming in or at least tossed his crop inside.

  At the foot of the caves, a small smooth place marked the end of the road. She turned around, the jeep having a pretty good turning radius, to park nose out. She got out, blew the horn.

  Giorgio was coming closer. She opened the door, yanked out the huge nine-volt flashlight on the floor of the passenger seat. Mitch, like most all country people, kept a flashlight in each vehicle as well as a Red Cross kit.

  As Giorgio was coming down toward her she kept calling him. He’d be a couple of minutes so she thought she’d stick her head into one of the caves. She’d never been in them before. The wind kicked up. She thought she heard a clanking sound but dismissed it.

  Walking into the one closest to her, she flashed the light around. Old campfires, dug in the ground, remained. Initials, with names and occasional military ranks, had been carved on the walls. She walked out, calling again.

  “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.” Giorgio was coming closer.

  She thought she heard a far-off motor as she walked into the second cave.

  “Good God!” She came up behind Mitch Fisher, stripped naked, chained to a post by an iron band around his neck, a handkerchief stuffed into his mouth. His wrists were cuffed and chained by two feet of heavy links.

  She yanked the handkerchief out. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. It was clammy in the cave, especially with the rain, so she took off her coat and threw it over Mitch’s shoulders. She had no way to unlock the chain, but she thought she might be able to wriggle the stake free. She worked on it and he tried to help, having limited use of his hands. He pulled with her. Wouldn’t budge. Also, the coat kept falling off.