An English huntsman from the Shires will often draw a triangle just like Tom Firr, the great huntsman who perfected this maneuver back in the nineteenth century. And such a cast or draw worked beautifully if your country was neatly divided into squares and rectangles.
America, having been cultivated according to European methods only since the early seventeenth century, wasn’t that neat, that geometric. Plus, the sheer boastful size of the country forced American foxhunters to devise their own methods for seducing foxes out to play.
Whole European nations could fit into one midsized state like Missouri. American foxes took full advantage of their land’s scale as well as the rich woodlands blanketing the East Coast.
Virginia, enriched by the alluvial deposits of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and the James, as well as their many feeders and tributaries, offered wondrous means of escape. A fox could dash over Davis loam, a kind of rich, sandy soil, scramble up on hard rock, a real scent killer, plunge into a forest carpeted with pine needles and pinecones, more scent killer, and then clop down a baked red clay farm road.
Huntsmen and hounds needed to be quick, to be problem solvers, and to respect those venerable English texts while finding their own way. The American way, like Americans themselves, was a little wilder.
Shaker was going to need that wildness.
Sister patiently waited forty yards behind him. Keepsake, very proud to be used instead of Lafayette, Sister’s usual choice for Saturday, pranced. He desperately wanted to show how perfectly he jumped.
Sister liked a horse that knew how to use his or her body. Good conformation, good early training usually gave a horse confidence. A horse in this way is no different from a professional golfer. The golfer perfects the various strokes; the horse perfects the various gaits and also learns to jump with a human on his back. Any horse can jump without a human up there, but the two-legged riders shift their weight, fall up on one’s ears, flop back behind the saddle, slip to the side, jerk the reins, and, worst of all, they yelp and blame the horse.
The horse needs more patience than the human.
Horses liked Sister. She rode lightly. She might make mistakes, but she always apologized. Mostly she stayed out of the horse’s way, for which it was grateful.
And proud as Keepsake was of his form over fences, Sister mostly liked that he didn’t hang a jump. He gathered himself back on his haunches and sailed over, forelegs tucked up under his chin, neat as a pin.
As they hadn’t yet jumped even a cigarette pack, Keepsake fretted.
The field behind her kept quiet. The Hilltoppers also remained silent. Bobby Franklin, that most genial man, ran a tight group. His Hilltoppers didn’t jump fences, but they kept right up behind first flight, led by Sister. It would never do to let these two fields become strung out. No coffeehousing. No skylarking. No using the horse in front of you as a bumper. Bobby moved out, kept it fun, and the Hilltoppers often ran harder than thefield because they needed to find ways around the jumps.
Immediately behind Sister rode Ken, Xavier, Tedi, Ron, Edward, and Walter. Thirty-two others filled out the first flight, with Jennifer and Sari riding tail. Being juniors, they pulled hard tasks, and riding tail was one of them. It was also a fabulous way to learn what to do and what not to do in the hunt field. Whoever rode tail usually picked up the pieces—loose horses, dismounted humans. In most hunts those in the rear were grooms, juniors, and riders on green horses. Often the riders on green horses were the first ones picked up.
Sister, unlike many masters, liked juniors up front, but they had to earn their stripes first. You earned them in the back.
Bobby used his juniors to go forward and open the gates. He figured he’d lose between three and five minutes on every gate, and this time had to be made up, otherwise he’d lose sight of Sister and the hounds. Not good.
There they all sat quiet as mice.
The noise came from St. Just, cawing overhead.“I know where there’s a fox with an infected paw. Youcould kill him.”
“Don’t listen to him,”Dasher warned the young entry.“He’ll lead you to a fox, but he’ll lead you to Hell, too.”
The hounds heard a long, rising blast followed by two short toots.
Trident, still trying to memorize the calls, whispered to his sister, Trudy,“What’s that one?”
“Uh, he’s not calling us back, he’s kind of telling us togo right.”Trudy watched as Asa walked toward the right and crossed the stream.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever remember all the notes,”Trident worried.
“You will,”Delia reassured him.“Watch Asa and Diana. Don’t worry about the strike hounds just yet. You keep your eye on the steady hounds.”
“Why is he moving us out of the streambed? Isn’tscent better down here?”Trinity asked, the white Y on his head distinctive.
“Because the wind has shifted. He’s pushing us intothe wind,”Delia answered.
“Why don’t we just go right down here by the water?” Tinsel asked, a good question.
“The trees, the underbrush are cutting the wind. But upthere”—Delia cocked her head toward higher ground—“it’s a little stiffer. And if we pick it up there, we’ll followit wherever it goes, and if we can’t get anything heading into the wind we can always come back here where itwill be cooler longer. Trust Shaker.”
“Do the other humans know this stuff?”Trident asked.
Delia laughed.“No, dear, they’re just trying to stay ontheir horses.”
“Do the whippers-in know?”Trudy crossed the stream, the clear water chilly.
“Some understand. Others just ride hard,”Delia said.
Asa, now with them, spoke, his voice deep.“It’s an article of faith that every whipper-in believes he or she canhunt hounds—until they have the horn to their lips.”
“Why?”Trinity gracefully leapt an old log.
“Kind of like the difference between a strike houndand an anchor hound. The anchor hound has to knowwhere everyone is and what the fox and humans mightdo. Remember, they’re always behind us. The strikehound pushes out to get the line. That’s all that houndhas to do, have a great nose and great drive. Doesn’thave to have a brain in its head, which I am here to tellyou Dragon does not. So don’t imitate that ass.”
The young ones giggled.
Delia added,“But Cora is smart. She’s got brains andathletic ability. What a nose that girl has.”
Just then Cora found.“Got one!”
Dragon skidded up to her.“Yo yo yo. It’s good.”
“God, I just hate him,”Asa grumbled as the youngsters flew up ahead, all excited.
Delia laughed as she ran with Asa.
Diana, nose down, figured the scent was about an hour old but holding. They’d better make the most of it. She didn’t know who it was. Often she did.
They clambered up the banks, leaving the stream behind, and came into a huge hayfield, sixty acres of cut hay rolled up in huge round bales. This was galloping country.
Sister popped over the tiger trap jump that Walter had built in the fence line. The logs, upright, created a coop, but it looked formidable. In this case it was because Walter was overzealous when he built it. The trap was three feet six inches but looked like four feet. A few people decided to join the Hilltoppers then and there. The rest squeezed hard, grabbed mane, and over they soared.
St. Just swooped overhead one more time, screaming about the fox with the sore paw, but no one was listening. Furious, he pooped on a brand-new velvet cap, then flew away.
Keepsake stretched out, head low, covering ground effortlessly. How he loved open fields, as did Sister. They moved so fast, she had tears in her eyes.
One of Ronnie Haslip’s contact lenses blew out. He cursed but kept right up. He’d jump with that eye closed.
Betty, wisely using the territory, cleared a jump, three large logs lashed together with heavy rope, at the end of the big field. She listened intently. Shaker had blown“Gone Away” when the hounds all broke out of the covert on the line.