Tivington Nott (17 page)

We move forward at a trot. I hold Kabara in and look for a clue as to which way they might have gone. We travel almost half a mile, descending the slope into a great bowl-shaped arena between two rounded peaks. I am permitting the lines of the landscape to lead me, instead of thinking about what I’m doing. I’m just changing direction, turning towards the western ridge, when I hear them. Kabara too. And a moment later a dozen or so hounds come flying over the horizon straight for us. By the noise they’re making they must be on a hot scent.

We pull up and watch them. Their line is almost straight; if they hold to it they’ll pass within a few yards of us. They’re running single file and clamouring as if their quarry is only inches from their noses. But there’s not a deer in sight. The line begins to carry them more off to the right and they eventually go past us about fifty yards away, heading towards the eastern ridge. I’ve no idea whether they’re hunting the right deer or not. There’s not a sign of the rest of the pack, nor any riders, and this break-away lot could be after anything. With the scent holding as well as it is, maybe I should have tried to stop them and have waited for someone else to come up?

If I give Kabara his head over this good going, he might just be able to get in front of them even yet, before they reach the ridge and disappear over the edge into the valley. There’ll be no catching them once they get that far. But if I’m going to do it, I’d better do it now. I release him. He knows exactly what’s expected of him and gives it everything, needing no direction from me as to the right heading. He’s on a line to intercept them at a full-stretch gallop in three or four strides, his hooves drumming evenly on the sound turf.

But those dogs are going faster than I thought they were. After less than a hundred yards I can see that we haven’t got a chance of overhauling them. They reach the edge of the hill well in front of us and pour over nose to tail, slipping along at high speed.

I rein in at the lip of the slope and watch them running away from us, down towards the base of the valley. I still can’t see what they’re hunting. But the side of the hill below us here is thickly patched with interconnected brakes of high bracken and gorse. Anything could be hidden there. It’s not an inhabited valley this one. There are no signs of cultivation down there. It is a minor offshoot from the Exe, rising upward gradually until it eventually joins the slopes of the high moor two or three miles farther on. Steep-sided here, narrow, rough sheep country, never broken by the plough, the only mark of civilisation on this valley is the tawny track of an unsealed road snaking along beside a rocky stream; itself a tributary, no doubt, to the Exe, curving around the base of this hill and joining the main river lower down, not far from where we crossed earlier.

There are several riders and three cars on the road. I watch them making their way slowly upstream. They pause then move on, as if they might be observing someone’s, or something’s, slow progress on the slopes above them. When I return my attention to the hill I’ve lost sight of the hounds. Searching the open patches between the bracken for them, however, I catch sight of their quarry! Seven or eight hinds are galloping along about two-thirds of the way down the slope, now wheeling sharply towards the cover of a tangled scrub where the foot of a rocky combe opens out, probably deflected from crossing the valley by the sight of the riders and cars below them.

A moment after the deer disappear into the scrub, I see what it is that the people on the road have been watching. A rider in a red coat emerges from the shadow of a couple of pine trees and moves down on to the line of the deer.

There’s no doubt it’s Tolland.

He must have left the river soon after we saw him, and turned up this tributary, following it around the base of the disheartening hill that finished off so many of the field. But is his presence down there now—so exactly positioned in the path of these break-away hounds—a happy accident for him? Or did he expect them? An uncanny prediction if he did. He moves out in to the bracken and raises his arm. A few seconds later the faint crack of his whip reaches me. He’s stopped the hounds. There’s a flash of white here and there as they mill around in front of him, frustrated. And now the distant sound of his voice berating them. And he’s done it with little effort, not even getting his hunter into a trot!

The whipper-in. Doing his job.

Outrider to the huntsman. He’s been doing it for ten years, and he has his own following. They are bunched up on the road below him, stationary, watching him bringing the wayward hounds down. The sound of their voices floating up to me out of the valley, thinly on the warm rising currents of air. He picks his way down the hill towards them, as if he has all the time in the world, and chases the dogs out on to the road to meet another couple and a half that have been in the safekeeping of one of the riders; no doubt the strays he was after earlier when we met him by the river. He’ll be the huntsman one day. When Jack Perry retires or dies. A local tenant farmer’s son; I’ve heard Morris say he was born within hearing of the kennels in Exford, and knows this country better than most people know their own kitchens, that he can travel about it in the dark almost as well as John Grabbe. He pauses now by one of the cars, then gathers the hounds around him and canters up the road with them, the others following.

I watch them for a moment. They must expect to intercept the line of the hunted stag that way sooner or later.

I could ride down and follow them, but it would mean losing too much hard-won height. And anyway, it would put me well in the rear. I’m not certain of the country in front of me, but it looks as though if I continue on in a north-westerly direction, sticking more or less to this ridge, I should be able to connect up with the head of their valley in a few miles. They’ve disappeared around a bend now and the road below me is deserted again. I can’t see any sign of those hinds either. Not a shiver of movement in the scrub.

I turn Kabara’s head and we canter into the arena again, crossing it and heading up the farther rise. He’s glad to be on the move. As we come out over the top there are a dozen or more riders ahead of us, strung out and going on at a fast pace, maybe a mile from here to the tail of them. Taking them to be the leaders, I’m surprised to see quite so many.

Kabara lengthens his stride eagerly the minute he catches sight of them and we begin to close the gap. The going’s perfect; gently undulating and sound underfoot; turf and increasingly extensive patches of tough short heather, with views to distant horizons in every direction. The cool air rushing past and Kabara moving easily, well within himself. We cover the ground rapidly.

This great confident horse under me!

When he sees how well he’s going the Tiger will be wanting him soon enough. But for the moment it’s me hurtling along, only the blue sky above us, hooves brushing the yielding heather. I shout his name and his left ear flicks back. He’s happy! Energy! Driving hard across the landscape! Bred for this.

Before we overtake the tail-enders I begin to suspect that these riders aren’t the leaders, but have come up the hill behind me and gone on ahead while I was mucking around chasing those hounds and watching Tolland doing his job.

A few minutes later, sure enough, I catch sight of the Tiger’s squat frame bouncing along in front of us, his wide bum in those pale twill breeches like a big signal going on and off. I ride up beside him and slow Kabara to his pace, holding alongside.

It’s a few strides before he glances across at us. He grins then, not looking surprised to see me and, without speaking, he points ahead, indicating the distant slopes of Dunkery Beacon, towards which we are riding and which rise above the level of this central plateau. It takes me a few moments before I make them out; a line of riders, half a dozen at the most, cantering along the side of the great hill, at least three miles ahead of us. The ones I should be with now if only I’d gone straight on. They’re flying!

‘Do you see him?’ the Tiger yells, pointing beyond the direction of the riders, farther to the right, to the eastern horizon. I look, and there he is! Distant but unmistakable. The Haddon stag. Standing stationary on the skyline, observing his pursuers. Calmly watching them coming on behind him, almost as if he’s waiting for them. I take my eyes off him for no more than a second, a quick check of the hill for Perry and the hounds, and when I look back he’s gone. Nor any sign of Perry or the hounds either.

‘I saw him!’

‘He’ll have gone down into Horner Water if Perry hasn’t beaten him to it and turned him back,’ the Tiger says, sounding pessimistic. And a minute later he adds, ‘Could be the last we’ll see of him.’

Kabara’s impatient to get ahead. He wants to be up there with those leaders. He keeps twitching his ears at me, semaphore signals telling me it’s time to stop slouching around back here with this tame stuff. But I coax him into holding down to the Tiger’s even canter, and he grudgingly puts up with it. Both horses pound along side by side, blowing and grunting at each stride. Finisher is content to enjoy the open run, not looking for anything more demanding; Kabara is tossing his head every few strides—still annoyed by that over-adjusted martingale—and inclined to gather and lunge, looking for a break.

The Tiger’ll tell me any minute to stay with him from here on and to change mounts at the first opportunity. And that’ll be the end of my hunting career. I’m waiting for it. But he says nothing. And we go on together for a quarter of an hour or more, matching stride for stride over the heather. But this poking along easily is not Kabara’s natural way of doing things, and being forced to hold to it for so long begins to put him off balance. I’ll let him go in a minute. For the moment there’s something in riding along like this—it will never happen again! The Tiger and I hunting together! And who knows, maybe
he’s
even enjoying that side of it? Could he be feeling companionable?

If only Roly-Poly could see us now!

We’re coming on to the side of Dunkery when Tolland appears in front of us, cantering up out of the head of the valley, tailed by his silent hounds and his small band of breathless followers. As soon as he gets on to the level, he turns in to the hill, his hunter giving a mighty leap as he does so; though from here there doesn’t seem to be anything worth jumping.

We’re heading to cross the road fifty yards behind Tolland, but it’s not until we’re right on the stony surface, at the very last second, that I see the deeply eroded drainage ditch on the far side! I tense up for the inevitable crash but Kabara gives a snort of fear and leaps it without adjusting his stride. A magnificent reflex action! Like a wild animal! Almost leaving me hanging in the air. Finisher goes up and over easily a stride behind us, well under control.

I look across at the Tiger in amazement, my nerves standing on end, gooseflesh down my legs. How we flew through the air. The gaping hole going by yards beneath. Red pinnacles of eroded rock. The grand canyon of Exmoor! An aerial survey. Every grainy detail of it.

The Tiger nods, his expression guarded, clearly impressed by my survival. So am I! Overwhelmed!

I ride on a way—in a bit of a daze—before the nasty truth of this business begins seeping through to me. The way he took it, the Tiger must have known that ditch was there. Hasn’t he hunted this country a hundred times? If he knew, why didn’t he say something? Yell out a warning to me in case Kabara missed it? Instead of pulling back half a stride and watching us go into it blind? Which, looking back, is just what he did. Observed us! I’ve got a persistent after-image of him doing it: out the corner of my left eye, easing down a fraction and steadying Finisher, then falling away that half stride just before we hit the gravel. I feel a mixture of anger and embarrassment, my cheeks becoming flushed. Sitting back waiting for us to smash into that hazard full tilt! I’d call it a death trap! Saying nothing and riding along with me as if we were companions. I was on the verge of enjoying his company and all that time he was planning to chance my neck just for the opportunity of putting this stallion through one more test.

I’ve underestimated him again!

He’s alongside. I can
feel
him staring at me, waiting. I wouldn’t know what to say to him. When I finally glance at him he tries a wink and a smile; man-to-man stuff. But it’s too late for that sort of rubbish. He’s guilty. It was that guarded look I got from him when we alighted safely on the sound turf. I saw it. I
know
I’m right.

I touch Kabara with my heels and give him his head. He jumps forward, leaving Finisher for dead. Our move takes the Tiger by surprise and we make a good twenty yards on him before I hear him yelling some command at me. That’s better. No winking or smiling in that.
That’s
the voice of the Tiger! Irate. Do this! Do that! The roar of the
master
!

I’m back to reality.

I’ll pretend I’ve gone deaf. Let him yell his head off.

Kabara’s picking up his rhythm nicely, responding to this liberation and to my anger, striking out powerfully after Tolland’s group. A
companionable
Tiger! What an imbecile to have indulged the thought! If Kabara weren’t so brilliant the drain could have been the end of me. Just like Alsop and the wall. Another pushy foreigner struck down. Out of his place and he gets chopped. See that? Smash! Down he went. Never the same again. And back there in the Black Valley, stringing beans in her whitewashed kitchen, I’ll bet Roly-Poly felt a twitch in her bones too, paused and looked up for a moment; wondering, hoping. Might almost have had me and Kabara out of the way in one hit there. She’s been waiting a long time for something like that ditch.

Too bad.

I encourage Kabara to his best pace; leaning forward in the saddle and whispering his name into his left ear. We’re too quick for
them
! If the Tiger wants to ride this stallion today he’ll have to catch us. Let’s see him do that on Finisher. Kabara’s really moving now, his ears working backwards and forwards, light as a startled cat, seeing every blade of grass, scarcely touching the springs of the tough swaled heather, flying; his rich Irish blood on red alert. Racing across this foreign moorland! Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could pull him up and make him wait for the Tiger. I’m not horseman enough for that. He’s got the bit in his teeth and has probably forgotten I’m on his back. He’s a black savage with a hunting mind of his own!