The Hounds and the Fury Read Online Free Page A

greater opportunities for profit.
    Garvey, a foxhunter, rode the way he hired: bold with brio, if occasionally too impulsive. Better to have impulsiveness as a fault than to be too cautious in both business and foxhunting, although sooner or later one would tumble. Garvey trusted he’d get right back up again, and so far his trust had not been misplaced.

CHAPTER 3
    T he Blue Ridge Mountains stood like cobalt sentinels, reminding those who knew their geology of the time before human time when Africa and part of South America slammed into this continent during the Alleghenian Orogeny, pushing up what then were the tallest mountains in the world. These collisions had occurred between two hundred fifty million and three hundred million years ago, knocking into rock already over one billion years old.
    Time’s unchallenged power affected Sister Jane. Each time she beheld the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, she paid homage to the forces of nature and to the brevity of human habituation: only nine thousand years by the Blue Ridge. At this exact moment, she was paying homage to the wisdom of the red fox,
Vulpes vulpus.
    Target, a healthy red in luxurious coat, had traveled too far from his den on After All Farm, the neighboring farm. He graced Sister’s Roughneck Farm. The Bancrofts, Sister’s beloved friends, owned After All. Hounds gaily shot out of the kennels at nine in the morning, skies overcast. Hunting in snow presented interesting tests for a pack of American foxhounds. The glowering skies, perfect for hunting, presaged well, but the snow would release scent only as the mercury climbed up from thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Today it stuck at thirty-eight degrees. Little snow melted. In the shade of towering pines and spruces, the mercury shivered below thirty-two degrees. But a fresh line is a fresh line, whether on dirt, sand, soft wet grass, or snow. A fresh line allows hounds to get on terms with their fox, and this morning highlighted both Sister’s and Shaker’s own good hunting sense. The hounds did the rest.
    The small field, nine people, trotted behind the thirty-two couple of hounds gaily working what was called the wildflower meadow, a half mile east of the kennels, east of the sunken farm road that wound its way up to Hangman’s Ridge.
    The two whippers-in, Betty Franklin and Sybil Bancroft Fawkes, rode at ten o’clock and two o’clock in relation to the pack. Shaker rode at six on the clock dial. They’d already moved through the mown hay field, which had been treated to a good dressing of fertilizer and overseeded before the hard frosts. The snow couldn’t have been better for the hay field.
    On level ground the white blanket was piled to a foot. Wind kicked up deep drifts. Other spots had but two or three inches, thanks to the winds. Trouble was, you couldn’t readily tell the depth of the snow just by looking at it. If the temperatures remained low and another front passed through, this packing of snow would become the base for more powder. Weeks might pass before it melted in the deepest folds of ravines. Sometimes the snows in those places wouldn’t melt until April.
    Sprays of white powder followed the hounds. Clods of snow popped off the horses’ hooves. The chill air brought color to everyone’s cheeks.
    On Thursdays, Sister’s joint-master, Dr. Walter Lungrun, could join them. Tedi and Edward Bancroft, Gray Lorillard, Charlotte Norton, Bunny Taliaferro, Garvey Stokes, Henry Xavier (called “X”), and Dr. Jason Woods filled out the field this Thursday, December 29.
    Diana, anchor hound, paused by a low holly bush. She inhaled deeply before moving to a dense bramble patch, which even without leaves was formidable.
    A small tuft of deep red fur fluttered on a low tendril replete with nasty thorns. Large pawprints, rounder than a gray fox’s, marked Target’s progress. He’d meandered through in a hunting semicircle coming from the east.
    “Target,”
Diana called out.
    Cora, the strike