The Hounds and the Fury (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

T
he Blue Ridge Mountains stood like cobalt sentinels, reminding those who knew their geology of the time before human time when Africa and part of South America slammed into this continent during the Alleghenian Orogeny, pushing up what then were the tallest mountains in the world. These collisions had occurred between two hundred fifty million and three hundred million years ago, knocking into rock already over one billion years old.

Time’s unchallenged power affected Sister Jane. Each time she beheld the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, she paid homage to the forces of nature and to the brevity of human habituation: only nine thousand years by the Blue Ridge. At this exact moment, she was paying homage to the wisdom of the red fox,
Vulpes vulpus.

Target, a healthy red in luxurious coat, had traveled too far from his den on After All Farm, the neighboring farm. He graced Sister’s Roughneck Farm. The Bancrofts, Sister’s beloved friends, owned After All. Hounds gaily shot out of the kennels at nine in the morning, skies overcast. Hunting in snow presented interesting tests for a pack of American foxhounds. The glowering skies, perfect for hunting, presaged well, but the snow would release scent only as the mercury climbed up from thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Today it stuck at thirty-eight degrees. Little snow melted. In the shade of towering pines and spruces, the mercury shivered below thirty-two degrees. But a fresh line is a fresh line, whether on dirt, sand, soft wet grass, or snow. A fresh line allows hounds to get on terms with their fox, and this morning highlighted both Sister’s and Shaker’s own good hunting sense. The hounds did the rest.

The small field, nine people, trotted behind the thirty-two couple of hounds gaily working what was called the wildflower meadow, a half mile east of the kennels, east of the sunken farm road that wound its way up to Hangman’s Ridge.

The two whippers-in, Betty Franklin and Sybil Bancroft Fawkes, rode at ten o’clock and two o’clock in relation to the pack. Shaker rode at six on the clock dial. They’d already moved through the mown hay field, which had been treated to a good dressing of fertilizer and overseeded before the hard frosts. The snow couldn’t have been better for the hay field.

On level ground the white blanket was piled to a foot. Wind kicked up deep drifts. Other spots had but two or three inches, thanks to the winds. Trouble was, you couldn’t readily tell the depth of the snow just by looking at it. If the temperatures remained low and another front passed through, this packing of snow would become the base for more powder. Weeks might pass before it melted in the deepest folds of ravines. Sometimes the snows in those places wouldn’t melt until April.

Sprays of white powder followed the hounds. Clods of snow popped off the horses’ hooves. The chill air brought color to everyone’s cheeks.

On Thursdays, Sister’s joint-master, Dr. Walter Lungrun, could join them. Tedi and Edward Bancroft, Gray Lorillard, Charlotte Norton, Bunny Taliaferro, Garvey Stokes, Henry Xavier (called “X”), and Dr. Jason Woods filled out the field this Thursday, December 29.

Diana, anchor hound, paused by a low holly bush. She inhaled deeply before moving to a dense bramble patch, which even without leaves was formidable.

A small tuft of deep red fur fluttered on a low tendril replete with nasty thorns. Large pawprints, rounder than a gray fox’s, marked Target’s progress. He’d meandered through in a hunting semicircle coming from the east.

“Target,”
Diana called out.

Cora, the strike hound, Asa, Diddy, Dasher, and Dragon hurried over. All hounds put their noses to the bluish snow. Just enough
eau de Vulpes,
fresh on the surface, kept hounds moving. Their long wonderful noses warmed the air as it passed through.

As hounds, sterns waving, eagerly pushed this line, Sister passed the brambles. Her sharp educated eyes noted the tiny red flag. She observed the fresh prints, fur showing around the pad, preserved in deep snow as perfectly as fossils in stone.

“Close.” She thought to herself, echoing the assessment of her hounds.

Shaker still did not lift the horn to his lips.

“Let the young entry come up to the scent,” he thought to himself as four couple of first-year students joined the pack today, their very first hunt in snow.

Both Shaker and Sister liked hounds to figure things out for themselves, to be problem-solvers, a trait natural to foxhounds in general. It was one thing to call out in heavy coverts, or in ravines to give a toot just to let the hounds and whippers-in know where he was, but in open ground, he liked to be silent, with a word or two of encouragement to a youngster.

Both master and huntsman loathed noisy, showoff staff.

The “A” young entry looked ahead as the pack lengthened their stride.

Shaker smiled down at the gorgeous tricolored hounds and quietly said, “Hike to ’em, young ’uns.”

Picking up their pace, ploughing through the snow, within seconds they filled in the pack. As yet no hound opened, spoke to the line, but all those gifted noses kept down.

Cora, the richness of years and high intelligence to her credit, wanted to make certain the line was growing stronger and fresher before she sang out. She didn’t much like poking around old lines of scent when fresh ones could be found with diligent effort. Being head bitch as well as the strike hound, she occasionally needed to chastise younger hounds who, in their excitement and desire to hunt, opened too early. Sometimes they would babble on the wrong quarry. That would never do.

Dragon, proud, competitive, and desperately wanting to become the strike hound, pushed ahead of Cora and called out,
“Come on.”

Cora, livid that the younger dog hound had challenged her authority, bumped him hard, knocking him in the snow. As she passed him she bared her fangs. Even Dragon, arrogant as he was, knew better than to start a fight during hunting and certainly not with Cora.

The pack opened, the young entry lifting their voices. Mostly they knew what they were doing, but sometimes the excitement of it overcame them and they’d
“Yip, yip, yip”
in a higher pitch than the other hounds.

Target, hearing the hounds, picked up his handsome head and looked around. The wind, light, blew away from him in a swirl. Once out of the shallow bowl he happened to be in at that moment, the wind would revert to a steady breeze from west to east. He realized he hadn’t smelled the hounds because of where he was. The little wind devils didn’t help. Being lighter than the hounds, he could run on snow with a crust on it, but this fresh powder slowed him. Target was not in an enviable situation.

Perched high in a two-hundred-year-old walnut, St. Just, king of the crows, peered down with relish. Perhaps this would be the day when he would watch Target die. He hated this fox with a vengeance, for Target had killed his mate.

Also observing the hunt was Bitsy, the screech owl. Curious and tiny, but big of voice, she was returning to her nest in the rafters of Sister’s barn when she heard the pack. Bitsy, social, liked to visit other barns and other owls. She’d enjoyed a night of feasting on various tidbits at Tedi and Edward Bancroft’s barn with a regular barn owl who lived there. That particular bird also lived for gossip, just like Bitsy.

None of the owls liked St. Just or any of the crows. Crows sometimes mobbed them in daylight. The battle lines were clearly drawn. St. Just and his minions feared Athena, the great horned owl. In fact, any animal with sense kept on the good side of the Queen of the Night. She could hurt you.

She wasn’t in sight, so St. Just, emboldened, began calling for his troops to rouse themselves. Within moments the edge of the nearby woods filled with cackles and calls. Those crows dozing in the walnut tree awakened, their bright eyes focusing on the laboring fox in the snow.

The sky filled with black birds circling the fox.

St. Just dive-bombed the big red, who snapped with his jaws.

Hounds were gaining, and the fox and crows heard Shaker blow one long blast followed by three short ones. Three times this sequence was played, which meant “All on.” All hounds ran on the scent.

To those riding behind, their bodies as warm as the tears on their faces felt cold, the hounds flying together on the blue snows was a sight they would always remember.

Target hoped he’d live to remember.

Bitsy flew wide of the crows to stop and assess the situation from the top of the recently vacated walnut. She flew back, and since she was an owl she could fly slowly, the marvelous construction of her feathers’ baffling silencing her approach.

“They’re a quarter mile behind.”

“Bitsy, help me,”
Target pleaded as he ran.
“See if the pattypan is open. Used to be an old den there.”

The pattypan, so named for its circular shape, had been a small forge built immediately after the Revolutionary War. After World War I it had fallen into disuse, although burrowing animals found it a wonderful place for a home.

The crows shadowed Target, the braver ones bombing him, slowing his progress. The edge of the woods, now one hundred yards ahead, could be his salvation, but he had to cross open ground—and therein lay the danger.

Cora could now see, dimly, the big red pushing through the snow, his brush straight out. Sister, too, could see him and knew from his brush that he wasn’t fatigued or beaten, but he was in peril. Target’s stride, shorter than the hounds’, was now, though not usually, a problem. He flattened his ears, his heart pumping, and he ran straight as an arrow.

A young male crow swerved right in front of him to slow him, but Target, quick as a cat, lashed out with his front paws and batted the bird down, then crushed its neck in his jaws. He bit into the body, kept the bird in his mouth, and trailed blood for ten yards before dropping the crow.

St. Just waxed apoplectic.
“Kill him, Dragon! Kill him, Cora!”

The odor of fresh blood threw off even Cora for a moment. The intoxication of it slowed the pack down just a second or two, but that was enough for the fox to reach the woods.

“The old den is clear; you can get in.”
Bitsy noticed the blood on Target’s jaws. “
The old deer path is better going. Not as much snow on it.”

The sheltering pines, oaks, hickories, black birches—the whole rich panoply of eastern hardwoods and pines—did keep the snows lighter on the deer path. Target sped along.

As the field rode along the narrow path the thunder of hooves brought down the snow on the boughs and branches. Showers of iridescent spray slid down collars, stuck to eyelashes, and secreted themselves into the tops of boots.

Target spied the thick walls of the redbrick forge ahead. He lunged forward, skidding into an old woodchuck den whose entrance was at the outer wall of the forge. Over the centuries this den had developed into a labyrinthine maze worthy of a tiny minotaur. Safe, he flopped on his side to catch his breath.

Dragon vaulted through a long window four feet off the ground, the glass long ago pulverized. Diddy, Dasher, and Cora followed, Asa last over the windowsill.

“There’s got to be more denholes!”

Cora looked around. The interior was intact.
“There are plenty of holes, Dragon, but he’s not going to pop out.”

“We can dig him out,”
Diddy, young and excited, squealed.

Shaker blew three long notes, then called, “Come back.”

“Better go,”
Asa advised as he also heard the rest of the pack baying, digging at the outside den entrance.

As the five hounds turned to obey their huntsman Cora lifted her head. She trotted over to another window where snow streaked across the floor. A raspberry, congealed lump the size of a tin of chewing tobacco, glistened. She drew close, inhaled deeply.
“Human.”

Asa joined her, putting his nose close to the lump.
“Indeed it is.”

Calling again, Shaker half-sang the words, “Come along.” He blew “Gone to Ground,” which should have excited them as well as the hounds outside.

“What’s this mean?”
Diddy asked, puzzled.

Dragon, having given up on a promising denhole, now stood by Diddy’s side.
“Don’t know. Someone could have cut themselves.”

“But there’s no footprints. And no scent.”
Diddy, young though she was, already displayed formidable powers of logic, powers necessary to a good foxhound.

“Scent’s long gone by now.”
Asa furrowed his brow, wrinkles deepening between his ears.
“And the storm blew snow over whatever footprints there might be.”

Diddy inhaled again, her warm long nasal passages helping to release what scent remained.
“I’ve never smelled human blood before. Since this is frozen, it must be very strong when it’s fresh.”

“’Tis,”
Asa simply replied.

“Sure a big glop.”
Dragon, too, was baffled.

“Human blood is never a good sign. Never.”
Cora, voice low, turned from the blood against the snow to leap through the window, followed by the others.

Bitsy sat on the spine of the slate roof, almost as good as the day it had been put on in 1792. She’d watched everything, and her amazing little ears had picked up tidbits of the conversation inside the pattypan forge. St. Just then dive-bombed her.

“One of these days, Bitsy, I’ll get you!”

She blinked, ducked, then opened her little wings to scuttle through a window. St. Just flew in after her. She emerged on the other side only to be confronted with the whole angry mob of crows.

Shaker knew Bitsy. When Cora, Dragon, Asa, Dasher, and Diddy had rejoined the pack, he praised his hounds, patting them on the head.

“Bitsy, come down toward me.” Then he called to the little brown owl, badly outnumbered.

The hunt staff, as well as some of the other humans, recognized Bitsy, for her curiosity lured her into their company. She’d watch people disembark from the trailers, she’d sit on the barn weather vane, or she’d hang out in the big tree opposite the kennel door. Every now and then she’d emit the screech for which her type of owl was named. It could freeze one’s blood as sure as that frozen lump in the forge.