Sister had just cleared Fontaine’s coop with Georgia Vann now riding in her pocket. But the entire field was feeling the effects of the long run. The staff horses, in fine condition, felt loosened up. But other horses who should have been conditioned but weren’t really began to labor, drenched in creamy white sweat.
Crawford stopped at the back of Hangman’s Ridge. “He feels lame.”
“Looks lame.” Martha confirmed his opinion.
“You go on. I’ll walk him to the trailers,” he instructed.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. I’ll take the shortcut around to the trailers.”
“Crawford, you might want to stay in the meadow even though it takes longer. You don’t run the risk of fouling scent quite so much.”
He glared at her, for he hated to be told what to do.“Fine.”
“I’ll see you back at the trailers. Hope he’s okay.” She trotted off. Then, when far enough away from Czapaka, she broke into a canter.
Crawford thought all this talk about fouling scent was bullshit, hunters showing off. He headed straight into the shortcut.
Overhead, St. Just flew low, startling Czapaka.
By the time Sister reached the hanging tree she, as a show of respect, stopped to ask Peter what happened.
“Two! Two, Janie, and two different than the first one you flushed out of the cornfield. I never! I never!” Then he turned his aged body, pointed with his hat to the direction the two foxes ran, the hounds already on.
“Thank you. You’re my best whip.” She smiled, squeezed Lafayette, and they were off again.
She leaned back as she cantered, slowly, straight down the ridge. No time to fiddle with the old farm road and bypaths now. A few more people rolled onto the earth with a thud. Loose horses ran about, finally stopping to graze.
At the base of the ridge Sister swooped around, heading toward her house. A zigzag fence was to her left, a few old locust posts from the former fence still in place at the corners. She smelled the skunk as she neared the zigzag. She cleared the zigzag, started into the western woods then stopped. Hounds were all over the place like marbles rolling.
“Hold hard!” she shouted, raising her left arm.
People strained to pull back. They stood there, horses and humans panting like the hounds. The temperature inched into the low sixties. They were burning up and there had been not one check or slowing of pace for one solid hour.
Georgia Vann dropped her feet out of the stirrups, as did Walter Lungrun. They flopped onto their horses’ necks to relieve crying muscles. Even Martha, always in great condition, breathed heavily then leaned all the way backward in her saddle to stretch out.
The hounds, eyes watering, circled around one old locust fence post. Uncle Yancy and Grace snuggled down in the den, slowly making their way underground to the walnut, its canopy a cooling covering.
“Stay down. We don’t come out until the pack is off Patsy.” But as they inched toward the walnut they found Patsy still underground.
“What are you still doing here? You can’t go out now. You’d have to be as fast as Netty,”Yancy, upset, shouted.
“The pack split, Uncle Yancy,” Patsy explained.
“I hear them above us,” Grace said.
“Only half. I swear I was at the base of the walnut and I was ready to run but I heard a young hound go off back toward the east. Half the pack went with him.”
“If that damn little buster spoiled our plan, I’ll run him right out of the forest myself!”Yancy spat.
Sister waited. She heard half her pack. They rarely split and on a day like today such behavior would be quite unusual.
Cora milled around the fence post.“I can’t get through the skunk. Fan out again. Fan out, I tell you!”
The hounds obeyed.
Diana, timid, said,“I think I’ve got something here but it’s blood. Is it fox blood?”
Both Archie and Cora loped right over. They put their noses to the ground, then looked at each other.“Yes.”
“Follow me!” Cora commanded.
As Sister followed her hounds, running, but running more slowly, since Cora wasn’t certain about this just yet, she glanced around for the whips. Betty was off to her left. She could see Outlaw’s buckskin coat better than she could see Betty in her black frock. She saw no one on the right nor did she see Shaker. She couldn’t remember when they’d parted company. The pace, killing, would begin to tell on the older hounds.
As the field rode off, Grace, Yancy, and Patsy, one by one, crept out of the hole. They put their noses to the earth like hounds.
“Cora said blood.” Uncle Yancy frowned.
They continued moving on in a line.
“Here,” Patsy said.
The other two ran over, noses to the ground.
Yancy grimly picked his head up.“It is blood. Fox blood.”
“What do we do?” Patsy worried.
“Should we follow them at a safe distance?” Grace asked.
“No. Wait until we hear the hounds go back to the kennel. We’re close enough that we can hear. Then we follow this trail ourselves.”
Sister pushed on. The hounds, baffled again at a creek, milled about. She counted heads. Only fifteen people were left out of the forty-one that had ridden first flight. She wondered how many hilltoppers were left. She hadn’t seen Bobby Franklin since the hog’s-back jump at the high meadow. Even Fontaine was out of the run and she couldn’t remember when he’d dropped back.
She couldn’t worry about who was where now. Hounds picked up the scent again about thirty paces downstream. She found a crossing and over they went. As she stayed close behind she glanced at the ground, a habit born of tracking on difficult days. She, too, noticed blood. Not buckets of it but a steady drip, drip.
She reached the high meadow, took an in-and-out on the western side, then cantered across the meadow. She pulled up before the hog’s back.
Doug and Shaker dismounted and held up their hands. She saw a horse on the ground and then a human.
“Stay here. Martha, you’re in charge. Don’t anyone move.”
Crawford had just reached the last of the field. He, too, pulled up, Czapaka now sound as a dollar.
The hounds sat in the meadow. Some of them were lying down.
Sister dismounted. Gunsmoke, on his side, was barely breathing. Fontaine, face down, wasn’t breathing at all.
“He has no pulse,” Shaker simply said.
Sister didn’t bother to ask him if he’d called 911 on the tiny hand-held he carried. She knew that would be the first thing Shaker did.
“Doug, help me turn him over. Shaker, how long have you been here?”
“About one minute and a half.”
She and Doug rolled Fontaine over. No mark was on him save one hole on the left side of his chest. He was emphatically dead.
“Better call the sheriff.”
He flipped open the phone and dialed 911 again. As he gave precise directions to the sheriff’s department, Sister and Doug walked over to Gunsmoke. She felt his pulse. She checked his gums, which weren’t white. She pointed to a mark across his throat. She felt to see if his windpipe was broken.
Then she walked back to Lafayette and got her flask out of its case. She knelt down by Gunsmoke’s head, pouring port into her hand. She rubbed it over his lips. His eyes opened.
“He’s got the wind knocked out of him and he’s scared. We’ve got to get him up. Doug, give me your whip.”
She stepped back and cracked her whip, stinging the lovely animal on the flank.
“Oww!” He struggled up.
“Sorry, Gunsmoke.” She ran her hand along his neck, pressing her ear to his neck, low. “He’s all right, I think.”
She hadn’t realized that she was shaking slightly. She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Martha, take the field home and start eating breakfast. Now!”
Martha, smart, knew Sister needed everyone out of there before people panicked. She waved and turned the diminished band home.