Outfoxed Read online

  A sizable hog’s-back jump punctuated the fence line, an old three-rail. Shaker cleared it right behind his hounds. Sister, fifty yards behind her huntsman, also sailed over.

  As they thundered through the fields she heard hooves moving up too fast behind her.

  Lafayette put back his ears. He slightly turned his head. “Bug off,” he warned Czapaka.

  Crawford couldn’t hold the big Holsteiner.

  Just as Czapaka’s nose drew even with Lafayette’s, Sister unleashed her whip, which she’d switched to her left hand. The thong and cracker snapped right in front of Czapaka’s nose. The warm-blood, startled, half reared, then stopped dead. Crawford slammed up on his neck, then slid off to the side as the entire field passed him.

  Bunky Jenkins, riding tail this day, perceived that Crawford was fine. He didn’t stop to help him, which only made Crawford even more furious.

  With reluctance, Martha turned back. He mounted up and then they had to fly to catch up because the pace accelerated. An upright jump, four logs stacked on top of the other, guarded the other side of the field. Cochise popped over and Czapaka with a whip and a spur followed.

  They reached the back of the field. Fontaine had moved up right in Sister’s pocket, the most prestigious place in the field. Crawford choked on his fury.

  Aunt Netty burst out from the woods, ran almost to Soldier Road, and then doubled back on her own tracks. Those people on the top of Hangman’s Ridge could see her as she doubled, then sped off first south, then zigzagged north as she headed toward the ridge. Then she veered back again. She knew the hounds were a quarter mile behind. She was pleased with herself.

  Grace waited at the still.

  “They’re in fine fettle today, Grace. Go now.”

  “Cora first?” Grace had been told to fear Cora’s speed.

  “And that arrogant young entry, Dragon. He’s fast. Very fast but fortunately he’s not very bright. Go on.”

  Grace trotted toward the old farm path, then picked up her speed.

  Cora stopped at the still. “Aunt Netty, I know you’re in there.”

  “Go to the right. You’ll pick up Grace’s scent. We’ll make this a good day for Sister. After that, it’s business as usual.”

  “To ground! To ground!” Dragon lifted his head back as he ran up and almost over Cora.

  “Forget it.” Cora moved to the right.

  “But I’ve put a fox to ground!” Dragon wanted to be a star.

  “Scent is tough today, you fool. It’s warmed up. There’s a light breeze. The ground is drying out. Don’t spoil the plan.”

  “I put a fox to ground,” he bellowed.

  Lightning fast before the other hounds joined them, Cora leapt up and turned sideways like a marlin on a line. She crashed into Dragon. He hit the ground with a thud, the wind knocked out of him. Then Cora seized him by the throat and shook him. She dropped him and ran to the right, picking up Grace’s scent.

  “Over here. Over here.”

  The rest of the pack followed her as Dragon, choking, stood up, shook himself, coughed, then sullenly hitched up with the rest of the pack.

  Sister and Lafayette leapt over a fallen tree trunk as a shortcut to the farm road. She’d heard Cora and then the pack turn. As she glanced behind her she saw her field strung out, the attrition rate rising.

  “Stay with the hounds,” she thought to herself, and wondered when she’d had this long a run, this fast.

  Grace ran back over Target’s evaporated scent, making a semicircle. She flew over Fontaine’s coop, not knowing the grays were in the trees watching her. She ran straight into the cornfield and then in a change of plan, because she was young and got confused, she blasted out the back of the cornfield with Uncle Yancy.

  “What do I do?”

  “Stay with me. There’s no den up here, Grace. You’ll have to run with me. You okay?”

  “I’m not tired. I’ve only covered a half mile.”

  Grace and Yancy skirted the fence line into the woods, a deep ravine in the far distance. Just to make life interesting, totally confuse the humans, they ran two large, loopy figure eights in the woods. The humans would think they were on grays until someone caught sight of them.

  Lottie Fisher’s horse stumbled. Fontaine, who happened to be looking back, pulled up Gunpowder. Lottie, quite good-looking, brushed herself off as she checked her horse.

  “You need company?” Fontaine reined in Gunpowder, lightly dismounting and removing his top hat. “Gets so lonesome in these woods.”

  She blushed. “Thank you. I’m fine. He’s fine, too.” She patted the gelding’s sleek neck.

  “How about a leg up, then?” He cupped his hand under her right leg. “One, two, three.” He pushed her up into the saddle.

  Then he swung up on Gunpowder, top hat back on his head.

  “Thank you so much, Fontaine.”

  “The pleasure was all mine.” He grinned. “Shall we join them?”

  Off they galloped on the last loop of the figure eight. The coop up ahead led into the meadow.

  Lottie didn’t realize Fontaine was not behind her until she came right up on the rear of the first flight. She didn’t think a thing of it.

  Together, Grace and Yancy dashed straight up the ridge, right to the hanging tree, dodging the screaming people, some of whom yelled “tallyho” to no avail. They scooted under Peter Wheeler’s truck.

  Old Peter, on his feet, slapped his thigh with his hat. “Yip, yip yoo.” He belted out a rebel yell. “Yip, yip yoo. I never saw anything like this in my life. Two red foxes. Yip, yip yoo. Janie, where in the hell are you?”

  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 t
here 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 emphati-cally 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.

  Sister bit her lip. “Did you see anything or anybody?”

  “No,” Shaker replied.

  “No, but I heard a shot about fifteen minutes ago. I thought it was another whip,” Doug replied.

  Betty rode out of the woods, beheld the spectacle. “Oh my God. What happened?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes,” Shaker said.

  Betty, too, dismounted. She viewed the corpse with horror, her hand flying to her mouth as she realized he’d been murdered.

  A whining drew Sister’s attention. Dragon walked up, dropping a dead red fox at her feet. The fox, too, had been shot. It was Reynard, Target’s son. A rope was still wrapped around his hind paws.

  Sister patted Dragon on the head. The humans scarcely knew what to say.

  As Gunsmoke caught his breath he shook a little bit.

  Lafayette asked, “Did you see anything?”

  “No. I took the hog’s back and I hit something. I don’t remember anything.” He cast his big brown eyes at his dead rider. “He was a strong rider, you know. Never gave a false signal.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lafayette sympathized. If it had been Sister, he would have been crushed with sadness.

  “Yeah.” Gunsmoke hung his head.

  “I told you I’d get the fox,” Dragon bragged as he rejoined the pack. The other hounds stared at him, not daring to speak under the circumstances.

  They all heard the sirens on Soldier Road. As the ambulance and patrol car turned onto the farm road the noise grew louder.

  Overhead St. Just cawed and circled once. Vengeance was sweet.

  CHAPTER 36

  Three blasts on the horn brought Cody to the hog’s-back jump. Cody arrived in about five minutes’ time, bringing Sally, an older hound who had slowed due to the pace.

  Shocked, the sheriff was there, as was an ambulance.

  She remained silent. After brief questioning the whips were released to take hounds back to the kennel.

  Sister Jane and Shaker remained behind. The sheriff, new to the area, had been recruited nationally from a list of qualified candidates. The county department, swept clean with a new broom, certainly increased in efficiency. However, Benjamin Sidell, secure in his knowledge and training as only an Ohio man can be, was surprised by murder in this most
Virginian of pastimes.

  “Mrs. Arnold, can you think of anyone who might want to kill the victim?” Ben had asked the other obvious questions establishing everyone’s whereabouts.

  “Sheriff, any one of us collects enemies in life but no, I can’t think of anyone who’d trip over the line,” she truthfully answered.

  Shaker stepped up to stand next to Sister. He watched the hounds following Doug in good order as Betty led back Gunsmoke. When Ben turned his gaze directly to Shaker, the curly-haired, broad-shouldered man simply shrugged. “Good-looking. Bad at business. Bad with women.”

  “Some life.” The young sheriff allowed himself a wry smile.

  “Will you notify his wife and children? They should be at the University of Virginia football game today. You might try there,” Sister Jane thoughtfully informed Ben.

  “Thank you, I’ll go there myself.” He ran his hand over his slick hair, good haircut. “Was Mr. Buruss a good friend of yours?”

  “I knew him all of his life. Yes, he was a friend, although I’m not sure I would depend on him. It’s difficult to think about it right now, Sheriff. Did I like him? Yes. He was a most charming man even when he was lying to you.”

  “Ah.” The sheriff had discovered Virginia specialized in such fellows. “And you, Mr. Crown?”

  “Didn’t like him but I could get along with him.”

  “And why didn’t you like him?”

  “Empty-headed. Thought he knew hounds. Didn’t.”

  “That’s a reason to dislike a man?”

  “To me it is.”

  “Yes, well . . .” The sheriff’s voice dropped off. The ambulance crew had loaded Fontaine on the gurney. The wheels clicked as they rolled it the few yards to the ambulance. “Perhaps you could tell me why this dead fox has a rope around its hind legs. Did you shoot it while hunting?”

  “No, sir!” Shaker, stung by what to him was an accusation, was vehement.

  Sister spoke up. “Sheriff, we don’t shoot foxes. That would be unsporting. We chase them. We don’t even let the hounds kill one if we can help it.”

  “So this isn’t your fox?”

  “No, sir.” Shaker’s face reddened.

  “This is a young male. He’s from a litter about one mile from my house. He moved off to find his own den and I’ve only seen him once since then, which was a few weeks ago. Males generally travel farther than females to find their own territory, but he remained close.”