“Why did you agree to that? Why give the reds all the fun?” Comet was furious.
“I said we wouldn’t interfere with their program.” Butch licked his front paw. “I didn’t say we couldn’t go out and watch. Besides, there’s a whole hunt season before us. Who knows, we might need Target’s cooperation.”
“Let the reds do all the work. We can learn this pack from them,” their mother advised.
“But you’ve known this hunt forever,” Comet whined. “What’s to learn? We should be out there.”
“Box of rocks.” Butch cuffed his son. “Hounds grow old and die. Young ones take their place. The pack changes like seasons. Sister Jane can breed for more speed, too. And never underestimate a hound. They’re intelligent. Not as intelligent as we are but intelligent. Climb a tree where the coop is, the smashed coop. You can see the pack coming from the cornfield across the pastures over the coop and into the woods. We’ll find out how fast they find, if Cora is still the strike hound and if Archie is still the anchor.”
“You go. I’m going to Netty’s den,” he mouthed off. “Let’s see how they work in water but if I feel like it, maybe I’ll just mislead all of them.”
“You do and you’ll be one dead fox,” Buster spat. “Not only will the reds not help you if needs be, I won’t either.”
“The reds are a bunch of snots.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I liked them. But there are times when we need one another. You do as I say!”
Inky, silent, would do as her father told her. She was anxious to see how Diana did on her big day. She hoped her friend would be impressive because she’d heard that hounds could get drafted out. They weren’t always bad hounds but they didn’t fit in with that pack. She liked Diana and was very grateful for the hound’s help. She didn’t tell anyone. She knew better.
The grays left their den, the distance to the cornfield and pasture being about a mile and a half.
“Dad,” Inky whispered as they reached a large rock outcropping, “when’s the last time a fox died?”
“Hunting?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Six years ago an old red, Herschel, got shingles. Gave the hounds a heck of a chase and then when he reached his den he sat on the outside of it. He knew he had to die, you see, so he chose a swift death. He was a brave fox, Herschel, and he didn’t deserve to get shingles. For a red, I liked him fine.”
A huge shape overhead startled them, so silent was the approach. Athena, the two-foot owl, was returning to her nest after a successful night.
“You’ll miss opening hunt,” Comet called up to her.
She circled them and said in a low chortle, “To ride well is the mark of a gentleman. To ride too well is the mark of a misspent life.” Then she vanished as silently as she’d appeared.
CHAPTER 35
Raleigh and Golly sat side by side at the kitchen window. Hounds, sterns up, eyes bright, walked behind Shaker. Doug, riding Rickyroo, walked in front of the hounds at a leisurely pace. Betty Franklin and Outlaw took the left flank. Cody took the right. Jennifer, a good rider, rode with her father, which pleased him.
As they rode off, light streaming in from the east, Golly said, “I’m glad I’m not a pack animal.”
“Me, too,” came the dry reply.
Golly, sitting on the window ledge and therefore eye to eye with the handsome Doberman, replied by curling her upper lip and emitting the smallest of hisses. Raleigh just laughed.
An old farm road snaked up to the top of Hangman’s Ridge. The pack reached this ten minutes after leaving the kennels. At the foot of the ridge, in the flat meadow once used for growing soybeans, trailers were bumper to bumper. People came from neighboring hunts wearing the individual colors of their hunts. Each rider from another hunt had called Sister to request permission to wear their hunt’s distinctive colors. Sister always gave that permission although some masters did not. In that case riders had to wear black coats and boots with no cuffs.
People came to follow on foot. It was going to be a big day thanks in part to the gorgeous weather—good for humans, not so good for scent.
As Sister rode by, men tipped their caps, top hats, and derbies. Ladies called out, “Good morning, Master,” as was proper. Ground followers also doffed their hats or waved. Lisa Bredell, Tinsley Wetherford Papandros, Isabel Rogers all mingled around, dying to find something to bitch and moan about. Each woman wore the perfect outdoor ensemble. Peter Wheeler sat on his truck like an elderly, beloved pasha holding court. When the hunt climbed the ridge his best friend, Granby Vann, a distant relative of Georgia Vann’s, hunting in a frock today, would drive Peter up. From the vantage point of the ridge they would be able to see much of the hunt. Most of the foot followers would stay high also.
Each horse, braided, hooves painted, tail plaited, felt the excitement. Their coats, especially the chestnuts’, caught the morning light, a thousand copper sparkles, whereas the dark grays gleamed like black diamonds. Dappled grays, flea-bitten grays, light grays, almost white, vied with blood bays, light bays, seal browns, and a few paints as to who was the best-looking horse that morning.
Children, barely able to breathe with anticipation, mounted their ponies. Adults heaved themselves up, the older and wiser ones bringing mounting blocks. Once up, a friend on the ground gave their boots a last-minute flick of the towel.
On they rode, up the hill, a pageant timeless in beauty, a passion older than the walls of Troy.
“Hold up,” Shaker gently spoke to his hounds.
Thirty couple, tricolor, medium-height American hounds carrying sculpted heads looked up at the huntsman and then back to the master.
“What beautiful children,” Sister said, beaming.
As the humans gathered round the hanging tree, Sister counted heads: 92 mounted and perhaps 130 on the ground. She couldn’t be sure, as more were climbing the hill. Thank god she’d ordered twelve cases of champagne for the breakfast, plus the usual bar. She laughed to herself because some of these people would rush to the bar with a siphon. How they lived to middle age or beyond amazed her.
Walter Lungrun was perfectly turned out. She smiled at him and he tipped his cap.
Fontaine wore a black weaselbelly, since he knew Sister loved the look. His white cords were set off even more by the rich, black coat. His top hat, smoothed and brushed, suited him.
Crawford wore a scarlet swallowtail with a white vest and his top hat was also perfect, with a scarlet cord attached to his coat. Men would kill for that scarlet cord, as they searched years for them. Most had to make do with a black hat cord, which strictly speaking was not proper. There was Crawford, his hat cord correctly in place, his boots direct from Lobb in London, costing him somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000, depending on the exchange rate. Everyone else got along with Dehners or Vogels, not cheap but at least under $1,000. But there was Crawford in the best boots money could buy in the world. His gloves, handmade by a glover also in London, were composed of more than thirty pieces of leather, matched, stitched so that he couldn’t feel the seams. No one in America even knew how to make such gloves anymore. His breeches, his shirt, his stock tie—all bespoke his wealth and, in his favor, his taste.
Martha, wearing a deep navy frock coat made by hand in Hospital, Ireland, surely was the best turned out of the ladies. Like her ex, everything on her body had been made expressly for her. Ravishing, she smiled both because she knew she looked good and because Crawford was courting her as though they were young again.