Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Rita Mae Brown

Author:Rita Mae Brown [Brown, Rita Mae]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-553-39263-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

A lone red-tailed hawk watched from high up in a pin oak.

Hounds worked diligently below, scuffling and snuffling. High winds postponed Tuesday’s hunt to this Saturday. They were glad to be out. No fool, the hawk knew hounds might stir a mouse, who’d zip out from under leaves. Presto, lunch.

Dragon moved ahead of the pack. The wet leaves had packed down but an enticing delicate hoof stuck out from under a deep layer of decaying leaves. The large, powerful hound nosed over, inhaled deeply, yanked the deer leg out from under. The foreleg, still jointed, dangled from his jaws. Tail upright, he circled the pack, tempting them with his treasure.

Sister fretted over anything that brought a hound’s head up when working. Deer carcasses, what was left of them, lay in all the fixtures, although some more than others.

This fixture, Mousehold Heath, had more than others because the Jardines, a young couple, both worked during the day. Poachers made good use of their absence. The terrible thing about poachers is sometimes they would wound a deer but not be able to track it and kill it, for fear of getting caught. The poor animal suffered for days, weeks even. In other cases poachers were trophy hunters, would take the antlered head, leaving the remains. Of all the misdeeds of irresponsible hunters, this enraged Sister the most. When so many are hungry, to waste food, to not share, to her it was an unforgivable sin.

Well, Dragon’s prancing wasn’t unforgivable, but she hoped he’d pay for it soon and he did. Sybil swept up upon him.

“Leave it,” the strong rider ordered.

He slunk away and that did it. She popped her lash, catching him right on the rump.

Ever the dramatist, Dragon howled. “I’m being murdered!”

His sister, disgusted, walked right by him, nose down. Didn’t look up.

Nor did any other hound. At one time or another, Dragon had offended every four-legged creature out there. He did, however, get back to business.

Rain started. Even with your tie tight around your neck, water would slide down your back. The mercury, hanging at 43°F, intensified the effect.

As it was a Saturday hunt, February 15, everyone endured it.

“We’ve been out here a long time,” complained Twist, one of the second T litter, a year younger than the first.

“Keep trying,” Cora encouraged her. “Sometimes in bad conditions, you’ll hit a line.”

“In this stuff?” wondered Thimble, Twist’s littermate.

“Oh, come on now, Thimble, you’ve hunted in the rain before,” Ardent, older, teased her.

“I don’t remember it raining this hard,” the elegant tricolor replied.

Within five minutes, the rain bumped up from a light steady patter to a barely-can-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face downpour.

Sister would hunt through any weather but she knew few people felt as she did. She was ready to turn back to the trailers when Pickens, a young entry, spoke.

The older hounds checked it out and within a flash, every hound in the pack roared.

Sister was on Lafayette, who surged. He was one of her best horses and best friends. Between them, they had twelve years of friendship, as she had bought him when he was a two-year-old.

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