Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (16 page)

Dreamboat, emboldened with each hunt now, nose to the ground, concentration intense, moved faster. Then he trotted. Finally, sure, he lifted his head, let out a deep call,
“Gray fox.”

As though someone tossed a match into a tinderbox,
whoosh,
everyone spoke at once, everyone on.

Shaker blew “Gone Away.” He and Hojo negotiated thick tree roots that had risen out of the ground with the freezing and thawing.

Some of those roots were best to jump, which the horses determined to do, to the surprise of some of their riders.

Many people in the hunt field like to set up for a jump, always a good idea, but terrain in central Virginia throws curveballs. Sit deep and take what comes. If you’re tight in the tack, you’ll be fine. Easier said than done, of course, and already two people popped off their mounts like toast.

Bobby Franklin, very glad he had Ben Sidell back there who took care of stragglers, kept the last horse in First Flight clearly in sight.

A light snow now fell like a lace curtain, adding to the extraordinary beauty of the wide creek, ice edging the sides, the conifers dusted with white.

Well ahead, Comet had taken the wide right path through the woods to Pattypan Forge. Hounds followed and just as the wise fox planned, hounds threw up at the forge. There were too many smells, including fox.

Threw up is the proper term for losing scent and literally throwing their heads up.

Aunt Netty, in her den inside, suffered no worries.

The pack blasted into the forge.

“Over here. Over here.”
Tattoo dug so fast at Netty’s den that two rooster tails of dirt flew behind his front paws.

Diana stopped for a moment.
“Tattoo, she’s an old nag. Let’s find someone who’s running.”

From the anteroom of her den, Aunt Netty cursed, sounding like a wail from a sepulchre.
“How dare you, you domesticated toad poop!”

This so shocked Tattoo that his jaw dropped open. He stopped digging.

“Come on, Tattoo,”
Twist, his littermate, advised.

Shaker and the field held up outside as hounds worked inside. The riders sported a mantle of light snow.

“I’ve got the line,”
Pansy cried.

“I’ve got a hot one, red, red hot,”
Dreamboat bellowed.

Cora checked first Pansy’s line, then Dreamboat’s. Hounds knew, thanks to all their schoolwork, that one should stay on the hunted fox but a red-hot line is a red-hot line. Cora thought to hell with it. They’d chase the hotter line.

“Come on!”
The fabulous hound rallied the others, for the pack was just about to split.

Already flying out of the back of Pattypan Forge, Dreamboat was now followed by the entire pack. The underbrush made the going rough and the humans had to run upwind, southerly, that day, on a narrow deer trail until it intersected with a somewhat wider riding trail, not very wide but wide enough to gallop without smashing your kneecaps.

Sister, on her beloved Rickyroo, eleven years old, almost twelve, knew that sure-footed though he was, the snow could be slippery and it was falling faster. Hunting in a falling snow, one of life’s great pleasures, made her glad to be alive.

Most hunts wouldn’t go out in a deep snow because it’s not sporting. The fox can’t run well should he be out. While hounds have to surf a deep snow, they plow faster than the fox. Hard on the horses, too. On the other hand, if a crisp coating lays on even a deep snow, a fox can fly along, whereas hounds slip and slide, break through, cutting their pads. But this snow, flakes large, twirling medium to fast, ground now covered with a thin sheet, this was perfection.

Ducking a few low limbs, Sister lost sight of Shaker but thanks to a blast on the horn every now and then, she knew where he was headed. In a quarter of a mile, the bridle path intersected two roads making a turkey’s foot. Right, left, or center, those were your choices.

Which one would the fox make? Uncle Yancy, ever so clever, didn’t bother with the path. He slid under thick brambles, and catapulted
onto the ruins of an old stone wall to run atop that for a bit. Hounds struggled in the nasty undergrowth but once they reached the stone wall they hopped up, as had Uncle Yancy. All twelve couple tried to get atop the stones, but some had to settle for walking beside it.

Walking frustrated them because they knew the older codger was gaining ground.

Betty, on the right, could no more get into that thick cover than anyone else. Tempted though she was to dismount, she knew better. Unless someone is in trouble, stay up, always stay up. Sybil, on the left side, had a little bit easier time as she was on a deer trail with fallen trees. Fortunately the crowns of the blown-over trees had smashed into other trees so she jumped tree trunks, easy to do on Kingston, bold and smooth.

Sister emerged onto the turkey-foot intersection. Shaker to her left headed fast toward the Lorillard place. Hounds, all on, hit the “hallelujah chorus.”

Edward and Tedi rode in Sister’s pocket with Kasmir not far behind. They allowed a decent distance but were right up there. Sister had offered the guest, Alida Dalzell, the honor of riding up with her but the beautiful woman demurred, saying she didn’t want to slow down the Master.

As it was, Alida wouldn’t have slowed down anyone but she didn’t want to seem to take advantage and the only person she knew in the field was Freddie Thomas. As she had invited her, Alida rode with Freddie. As some riders were slowed a bit by the snow, the two women began to creep forward. This was not a violation of protocol. For those men whom they passed, this was a delicious experience; Alida, up in the irons, rode at such pace, her rear end well out of the saddle.

Little by little, Sister and First Flight were closing the gap between themselves and the hounds, whom they couldn’t see but could sure hear. Ahead of them, Shaker could now see his tail
hounds. Betty, finally able to move along, had crossed the turkey foot, taking the straight road where she knew a narrow trail would cut off toward the Lorillard place. Sybil wove through the debris-strewn path to emerge at an old, still-sturdy shed. If she kept going, she would shortly reach the edge of the front pasture at Sam’s farm.

Just as Sybil galloped to the front pasture, Uncle Yancy shot into it, going straight for the graveyard, which rested a distance from the house.

Sybil took her hat off, pointed Kingston in the direction of the fox, and as the pack and then Shaker came into sight, she shouted “Tallyho!” That done, she quickly hopped the fence into the pasture, veering wide left, hoping to get up to the side of the pack as she, like Shaker, ran behind.

Jumping a tiger trap into the pasture, Betty had heard the “tallyho” so she kept to the right with extra vigilance. The last thing she wanted to do was turn the fox, nor did she want to lose the pack.

Shaker, on the road side, flew around to the right, jumping the same tiger trap that Betty had just cleared. Seeing this from a distance, Sister headed straight for it once she, too, got off the road.

By now Uncle Yancy had glided over the neat graveyard stone enclosure, reached his den, and ducked in. No one saw him duck out to creep to the Lorillard house, where he slipped under the back mudroom, climbed up into it, pushed back the rags, and jumped from one thing to another until he was on the top shelf, warm, a bit winded, and quite happy. Really happy, since he could hear the hounds blabbing outside.

The pack leapt into the old graveyard and found the den. Not wanting to jump into what he considered sacred ground, Shaker dismounted, throwing the reins over Hojo’s neck. Perfect gentleman that he was, Hojo watched the proceedings inside the graveyard.

“Leave it. Leave it,” Shaker ordered.

One doesn’t want hounds digging at graves, even if there is a
den there. The huntsman blew “Gone to Ground.” As he did so, Mercer—unable to control his excited horse, Dixie Do, who pulled like a freight train—passed the Master. Sister and the field watched the show.

Dixie headed straight for Hojo, came close to the patient huntsman’s horse, swerved for a moment, and took the low stone wall to stop hard in front of Shaker. That Mercer stayed on was a miracle.

“I do so apologize, Shaker.” Mercer couldn’t say much else.

“Happens to us all one time or another. Best you apologize to the Master.”

One never passes the Master.

Mercer turned the now tractable Dixie Do toward the field, Sister in front, the whippers-in to the left, removed his cap, and bowed his head.

A moment’s silence followed, then Mercer quipped, “Sooner or later we’ll all end up here.”

“No one could quite believe it.”
Diana talked to Inky through the kennel chain-link fence. Hound and fox were quite comfortable conversing this way. Good fences make good neighbors.

“We were too astonished to speak,”
the hound continued.
“We looked at him, looked at Shaker. Everyone shut up. Mercer apologized.”

“Bet Uncle Yancy is still laughing.”
Inky admired the old red fox and his wily ways.

“What a setup he has.”
Diana knew the old boy could get into places, then disappear.

“Getting cold again.”
The beautiful black fox looked up at the cloudless night sky.
“When it’s clear, the stars seem bigger, don’t they?”

“They do.”
Diana fluffed her fur.

The two canines—one wild, one domesticated—chatted a little bit about other creatures, and celebrated the seasonal lack of bugs, one advantage of the cold.

“I’m going back to my den,”
said Inky.
“I built up a lip on the northwestern side and it’s even warmer than before.”
Inky paused.
“Do you know where you’re hunting from on Thursday?”

“No, but it won’t be around here. Sister never likes to overhunt a fixture if she can help it.”
Diana headed back to the kennels to curl up with her roommates, warm with all those bodies and deep bedding.

Inky hurried to her den in the apple orchard, happy to go home after eating the treats left for her in the barn. She liked talking to Diana—a most sensible animal, in Inky’s estimation.

Inside, Tootie, tired after the day’s run, checked her e-mails on Sister’s computer. Felicity loved the hunt as did Parson, her horse. Val, Tootie’s old Custis Hall roommate, had e-mailed her from Princeton, decrying the lack of good men to date, a common theme with Val.

The next message she read, then re-read. Within a minute she was furiously scrolling through information online. After, she walked down the stairs, stopped in the library, then headed to the kitchen.

“Sister.”

“Yes, madam,” Sister teased her as she sat at the table, polishing her boots. “If I don’t do this after hunting, I wait until I really resent it because I need clean and shining boots.”

“I cleaned mine, too.” Tootie took one of Sister’s boots, polish evenly applied, and began brushing the well-worn leather.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“Dr. Hinson e-mailed me about bloodlines. Actually, she started with the Przewalski horse from seven hundred thousand years ago. We know the animal’s DNA, isn’t that something?”

“It is.”

“Anyway, she said I should investigate the Turn-To line, especially the mares of El Prado, Sadler’s Wells, and go back to Turn-To. She said I can never know enough. If I want to be an equine vet I should know the most important sires and mares for a lot of different breeds. She said start with Thoroughbreds as the records are good.”

“Be specific. What do you mean about mares?”

“I mean the mothers of those great stallions.”

“And did Dr. Hinson tell you those Turn-To mares, out of his line, have real toughness, can go long and hard without injury?”

Turn-To lived from 1951 to 1973.

“She did.” Tootie smiled at Sister, always admiring of how much she knew about horse and hound bloodlines. It was people’s bloodlines that the Master didn’t care to study although by now, at 73, she’s seen, in some cases, up to five generations of humans from one family.

“Dr. Hinson knows her stuff. She’s right to get you to study more than, say, the skeletal system,” Sister said.

Tootie then told her about the call at Broad Creek Stables, how lovely the foal was and then the discussion with Phil.

“Never thought of that, I mean lawsuits over bloodlines. Once the Jockey Club started having Thoroughbreds tattooed in 1947 I should think that would have cut down on unethical representatives of Thoroughbreds.”

“Some letters and numbers can be altered,” said Tootie. “A
T
can be made to look like an
F
.”

“Well, yes. I would think Phil has few worries. His stallions and mares have produced good foals, good runners, for close to a century. The Chetwynds are both lucky and smart. Takes both in the horse business.”

Though tired, Tootie polished with energy. A slick shine gleamed on the old black boots.

“Did you know that Hail to Reason’s dam?” Tootie named one of the great horses of the twentieth century. “Nothirdchance raced ninety-three times in six years and went on to breed?”

The mother of Hail to Reason clearly evidenced stamina and soundness.

“Well, I didn’t know that name but I did know that Turn-To bred a lot of tough mares to compensate for his unsoundness. From
his line we got Hail to Reason in 1958, Sir Gaylord, so many great horses.”

“How do you remember all that?”

“Honey, it’s easy to remember what you lived through, and I was a horse-crazy kid. Still am. If you want an interesting project, given that you were over at Broad Creek Stables, check the pedigree on Navigator, the horse that put Broad Creek on the map long before even I was born.” She laughed. “Hey, that’s a good shine.”

“So Turn-To bred tough mares and produced tough mares who then produced tough foals, regardless of sex?” Tootie asked.

“When it all went right, yes, and luckily it went more right than wrong. You know breeding higher vertebrates isn’t exactly like breeding Mendel’s pea. Seems to me there’s a lot more variety.”