The Fox Hunt

by Bonnie Bryant

  Me? Stevie wondered. No way. Carole? Not really. Carole knew a lot about hunting, but she hadn’t worked all that hard to study it now. Lisa? Of course.

  “… and that is Lisa Atwood.”

  Most of the members of Horse Wise clapped politely. Stevie and Carole were much more raucous about it. Stevie even cheered.

  “Then we need to have a huntsman. I conferred with Mr. Baker on this and chose one of his riders, Phil Marston.” The members of Cross County clapped. Stevie cheered again.

  Max named five whippers-in, including Carole, and told them that they would be working closely with Phil. That was good, because though Phil was a good rider, he wasn’t so familiar with the land around Pine Hollow, and he’d need Carole’s help to figure out where the fox could be hiding.

  “… and now we come to the fox. For this, we needed to find somebody who could be wily, clever, devious, cunning, sneaky, shrewd, sly, and deceitful.” He paused. Stevie took the opportunity to look around and was surprised to see that absolutely everybody was looking straight at her.

  Carole clapped her hand over her mouth to try to contain her giggles, but it was no good. They simply exploded. Lisa joined in, and within seconds, all forty riders were laughing.

  Stevie blushed bright red.

  “Moi?” she asked, trying to sound innocent.

  “If the shoe fits,” Max said, himself laughing. “Now, next is the matter of where we can ride and where we can’t ride. Stevie and most of the Pine Hollow riders are familiar with the land that we can use. I have made a small map for each rider to carry—”

  Max was interrupted by the sound of a car door slamming and a familiar voice shouting, “Re-ed! I need your help! Where are you?”

  It was Veronica. She’d arrived late and now expected Red O’Malley, Pine Hollow’s head stable hand, to help her groom Garnet and tack up.

  A pained look crossed Max’s face. Mr. Baker seemed a little confused. “One more rider,” Max explained.

  Red excused himself from the group and went to tack up Garnet. Veronica seemed to think he could do it very well without any help from her, so she joined the riders and waited for Red to bring Garnet to her. That was very typical of Veronica, and if Max hadn’t thought it was more important right then for her to hear what he was going to say, he would have shooed her into the stable and told Red to leave her to her own devices.

  “As I was saying,” he continued, “I have made up a map which all the riders should carry with them. There are a few farmers who have specifically asked us not to ride on their land, either because they simply don’t want us there or because they still have some crops in the ground. We must always respect their wishes. Not only would it be trespassing to disobey, but it would also jeopardize the permission we’ve received from other landowners. In other words, don’t break this rule. Do you understand?”

  Everybody nodded. All of Pine Hollow’s riders had had this basic rule of riding pounded into them from the first time they’d ever been on horseback. Everybody understood and agreed.

  “Okay, then, I think it’s about time for our fox to get going, so all you animals, come get your ears.”

  Stevie thought the ears were just a little bit silly as she saw some of the kids designated as “hounds” put them on. However, when she saw her own “fox” ears, she changed her mind completely. They were adorable!

  Proudly she slipped the ears on over her helmet and adjusted them until she was pretty sure they were straight. When Phil saw her with her ears on, he whistled.

  “That’s a wolf whistle,” she joked. “Totally wrong for a fox.”

  “Well, let’s see just how good a fox you are,” he told her. “I can promise you, you haven’t got a chance against a really terrific huntsman such as myself.”

  Stevie grinned. She loved nothing better than a good contest, and she could tell that this would certainly be that. “We’ll see,” she said evasively. “We’ll just see.”

  On that note, she mounted Topside and walked him over to where Max was waiting for her.

  “This is right up your alley,” Max said. “I know you’ll be a great fox.”

  “I hope so,” Stevie said.

  “Don’t worry. You’re a natural. Now, here’s what you want to do.…”

  He explained that she had two jobs. The first and most obvious was to try to avoid capture by the huntsman and the hounds. Max suggested that she try to think of a way to make all the other riders think she had gone one way while she actually went another. Stevie’s mind was racing already. Max was right. This job was tailor-made for her. Her other job, and really the more important one in a way, was to lead everybody on a ride that would be fun.

  “That’s what this is about,” he said.

  “Fun is my middle name,” Stevie said.

  “Sometimes I think it’s your first and last names, too,” Max told her. Stevie wasn’t absolutely sure that was a compliment, but she decided that for present purposes it was pretty good.

  “I’m going to keep all the riders in the stable while you get a ten-minute head start.” Then he handed her a bag of confetti. He told her it was her “scent.” To be fair to the huntsman and the hounds, she had to drop a small handful of “scent” every five minutes. “Of course, they won’t necessarily know when you dropped it, or in what order the handfuls were dropped,” he said. “You can use those facts to confuse them as much as you want.”

  “Oh, I intend to do that,” she promised, a wicked grin crossing her face. Then she solemnly shook Max’s hand and told him good-bye. As soon as he was inside the stable, she dropped her first handful of confetti and headed for the woods.

  “WELL, THEN, IF I can’t be the Junior Master, I’ll be the huntsman,” Veronica announced.

  “Phil is the huntsman,” Carole told her. “If you had managed to be here on time, you would have known that. You are a rider in the field. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Veronica said. She spun on her heels and made a beeline for Max and Mr. Baker, who were guarding the door to the stable so that nobody could see where Stevie had gone.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Phil asked Carole.

  “She thinks that just because she comes from a wealthy family, she ought to be in charge of everything. She wants your job, and unless I’ve sadly misjudged the situation, she is now going to ask Max and Mr. Baker to remove you as huntsman and install her in the position.”

  Phil and Carole watched. They couldn’t hear what was being said, but they could see the surprised look on Mr. Baker’s face as Veronica tried to make her case. She was gesturing toward her own breeches and riding jacket.

  “You know what she’s doing?” Carole asked.

  Phil shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly guess.”

  “She’s showing Mr. Baker and Max that she’s perfectly dressed for a hunt, and she’s telling them that you are not. Therefore, she should be the huntsman.”

  They couldn’t see Veronica’s face as Mr. Baker and Max answered, but Carole was quite certain she knew what was being said and how Veronica was reacting.

  “Max just told her that the huntsman is a person on horseback, not a clotheshorse, and that it’s a job given to somebody responsible, who arrives on time, tacks up his or her own horse, and who can be counted on to be a leader.…”

  “I don’t think they said that much,” Phil said, watching Veronica’s every move. “She walked away too soon. But you probably covered the high points.”

  Lisa came over to Carole and Phil. “I don’t believe what Veronica just did,” she said.

  “Believe it,” Carole said. “The girl will never change.”

  Carole saw Max look at his watch, wait for a moment, and then look up. “Riders up!” he called out. It was now time to try to figure out just how clever Stevie was going to be today. Carole hoped Stevie would be in top form.

  The mock hunt had been organized very much like the real thing, and the participants were expe
cted to act their parts just as they would in a real hunt. Therefore, Lisa took the lead, along with Mr. Baker, who was serving as the grown-up Master.

  Lisa instructed Phil to get the hounds in order and to see if they could pick up the “line,” or scent of the fox.

  The whippers-in stayed at the edge of the pack of five hounds, and Phil told the hounds when to begin the hunt.

  It took only a few seconds to find the first pile of scent. That was easy. The question, then, was what direction Stevie had taken from the back of Pine Hollow.

  “That way,” Lisa suggested, pointing to the section of woods nearby. Something—most likely a horse—had made a trail in the grass leading toward the woods that way.

  Phil didn’t move. He jutted his lower jaw forward thoughtfully. “That would be logical,” he said. “But we’re not talking logical. We’re talking Stevie. Let’s go that way first.” He pointed to a section of woods across a series of fields separated by wooden fences with gates through them. The whole section was crisscrossed with horse-made trails. “She would know that would be much more confusing for us.”

  “But all those gates!” Lisa said, imagining how long it would take Stevie to open and close each one of them.

  “She’s riding Topside,” Phil reminded Lisa. “Topside is a championship show horse. He can jump most of those fences. We don’t have a minute to waste.”

  “Tallyho, then,” Lisa declared, and the hunt began.

  STEVIE CLUCKED HER tongue, urging Topside to hurry through the woods. She wanted to lay this part of her trail as quickly as possible, dropping her confetti “scent” often to confuse the huntsman and the hounds.

  Stevie didn’t often have a chance to ride all by herself. Although she loved being with friends, it was kind of nice to be alone with Topside. It made her imagination churn, thinking what it might have been like for pioneers to ride through these woods alone hundreds of years ago, not knowing which tree might hide a predator or an enemy. That made her feel a lot like a fox. It was a real inspiration.

  “Now what are we going to do?” she asked Topside. His ears flicked around at the sound of her voice, but he didn’t seem to have an answer. Stevie was going to have to do this all by herself. She drew Topside to a halt, sprinkled some confetti on the ground, and thought.

  She was near a hillside, not far from Willow Creek, and headed for farmland where they were not supposed to ride. The hillside seemed the most logical move. There were a lot of hiding places there, and years of riding horseback in the woods and playing hide-and-seek there with her riding friends had taught Stevie where every one of them was. Those years had also taught Carole, and then Lisa, where the hiding places were, too. There were some caves, some brush-covered areas, some gullies, all of which afforded ample opportunity for hiding. Carole and Lisa knew every single one of them. Stevie realized then that if the hounds and huntsman got into this section of the woods, they would spend a very long time looking in every single hiding place. That would be absolutely wonderful for a wily fox, especially if that wily fox were not in any of those hiding places.

  “What a great idea!” Stevie told Topside, her face lighting up with joy. “Let’s get going!”

  With that, Stevie headed toward the hillside, where she knew all the hiding places were. She dropped some confetti, followed the trail up the hillside, and dropped some more. Then she began her clever ruse. She turned Topside around and followed her trail backward, exactly. She passed the place where she had dropped the confetti, and then she dropped some more. The hounds and the huntsman would see the confetti, but they would have no idea that she was actually heading down the hill, rather than up it, when she dropped that particular handful of “scent.”

  The next trick was to get to the creek before she had to drop any more confetti. She intended to go into the creek and stay there, following it all the way back to the field, once the other riders were out of the field. While she was in the creek, she was safe as safe could be. Oh, she’d drop all the confetti she had to, but it would float downstream in the water, well away from where any of the other riders would see it. In fact, she could drop the whole bag, and it wouldn’t tell anybody anything about where she was.

  Stevie beamed proudly. She was a very clever fox, indeed.

  They reached Willow Creek safely before Stevie had to drop any more confetti. Topside lowered himself into the shallow water, and Stevie let him have a refreshing drink. Then, hearing the approaching riders, Stevie clucked her tongue, signaled with her legs and seat, and got Topside moving through the water. Topside liked walking in the creek. Even though it was cool weather and the water was surely chilly, Topside moved forward quietly and willingly. Stevie loved the sound of the horse’s hooves slooshing through the water and his shoes clicking surely against the rocks in the creek bed. It was a wonderful sound, and every single step took her farther and farther from those who were hunting her.

  “I FOUND SOMETHING!” Anna McWhirter announced. “It think it’s confetti.”

  “It isn’t,” Lisa said, examining it closely. “It looks like a bubble-gum wrapper to me.”

  “Does Stevie chew bubble gum?” Anna asked.

  “Sometimes, but she would never drop a wrapper in the woods. Look for confetti.”

  Thirty-nine to one seemed to Lisa to be a pretty good set of odds, unless of course the “one” was Stevie Lake. Lisa wasn’t at all sure she was happy to be the Junior Master of this hunt. A fox was one thing—Stevie was another. Stevie would do everything she could to win this game, and Lisa was beginning to think that that might involve making her and all the other riders look a little silly. Lisa didn’t like looking silly.

  “Phil, can’t you get those hounds to find the confetti?” she said.

  “I’m doing my best,” he said. “But you know Stevie. She’s going to do something totally unpredictable.”

  Lisa sighed. “I know,” she said. “That’s what I’m afraid of, too.”

  “I bet she’s heading for cover,” Phil told Lisa. “Are there any hiding places around here?”

  “That’s it!” Lisa said. Then she signaled for Carole to join them. Carole left the group of “hounds” she had been trying to get to search for “scent” and rode over to Lisa and Phil.

  “We’ve got to put our heads together,” Lisa said. “We think the fox has gone to cover, and you know there are a zillion hiding places on the hillside. How do we start?”

  “Of course!” Carole said, agreeing with Lisa and Phil. “I remember all the times we played hide-and-seek, but if she’s hiding, we’ve got an awful lot of seeking to do.”

  “This calls for organization,” Phil said. He looked at Lisa. He knew her reputation for logical thinking.

  Lisa paused for a moment. Phil and Carole could practically see the thinking process.

  “We’re going to have to divide the hillside area into sectors and assign hounds to each sector until we find some ‘scent.’ When we’ve narrowed down the area, then Carole and I can tell you where the best hiding places are.”

  Carole looked around quizzically. “Where’s Veronica?” she asked.

  “Beats me,” Lisa said. “The last I saw of her, she’d decided that Garnet wouldn’t like going into the woods. She said something about waiting out in the fields until we all came to our senses.”

  Phil seemed confused.

  “Veronica doesn’t like riding in the woods,” Carole explained. “She might get scratched by a branch or something. It’s just like Veronica to try to make it Garnet’s fault.”

  “With that girl, everything is somebody else’s fault, isn’t it?” Phil said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lisa said. “The fact is that a hunt without Veronica is actually better than one with her. If she were here with us, she’d have some kind of imaginary problem that would make it harder for all of us. Frankly, I was expecting Garnet to have a loose shoe before we got to the woods. If she’s happy waiting in the field for us to return victoriously with Stevie, t
hat’s okay with me.”

  “Me, too,” Carole agreed. “So let’s forget about Veronica and concentrate on Stevie.”

  Then there was a very odd sound. It was a sort of mangled holler, a little bit like a dog yowling, only there weren’t any dogs around. It had to be one of the “hounds.”

  “Methinks the hounds have found the line!” Phil said excitedly.

  Lisa’s eyes brightened, too. “Okay, then, we can narrow it down to one sector right now. See? Hunting really is easy as long as you try to think logically,” she said proudly.

  “I hope you’re right,” Phil said. “But remember, this is Stevie we’re dealing with.”

  “Sure, but don’t forget that Stevie’s dealing with three of her best friends—and it takes three to know one!”

  STEVIE AND TOPSIDE paused, standing in the cool running water of Willow Creek. Stevie knew the creek was about to enter the open field and she’d have no more cover in a few steps. She had to be absolutely certain that the field was empty before she left the woods for the open. She could hear the babbling of the water. She could hear some late season creatures rustling in the short grass. She could see the wind blow the remaining yellow stalks, and she could smell the cool freshness of the early-morning dew. There were a lot of things going on in the open field, but there wasn’t a sign of the hunters. She was home free.

  Cautiously and slowly, she moved forward, Topside’s hooves in a muted clip-clop on wet rocks. She stopped again and looked around once more. She saw nothing. Pine Hollow’s stable was across three fields—a distance of perhaps three-quarters of a mile. All she had to do was get across those three fields without being spotted. That meant she was going to have to go fast. She reached into the confetti bag and fished out a handful of paper flakes. She dropped them onto the ground and began her dash. If she could get inside the paddock and through the stable door, she could win. It was an inspiring thought.

  Topside had been raised to perform. He felt the urgency in Stevie’s signals to him and he spurted into action, moving quickly from a trot to a canter and then into a genuine gallop. It was a glorious gait. Stevie loved the feeling of the wind lifting her long hair and brushing it back. She scooted across the first field, approached the fence, leaned forward, rose in her saddle, and signaled Topside to jump. He fairly flew. As soon as Topside recovered from the jump, she aimed him toward the second fence. That was when she realized that she couldn’t go that way. It led straight across some land belonging to a man named Andrews that the riders did not have permission to use. The detour was going to be a time-consuming nuisance, but though Stevie was only too happy to break most rules, this was one she always followed scrupulously. She’d have to find another route. She turned Topside sharply to the right and skirted the Andrews land, turning left at the end of the fence. Finally, she turned right and was once again aimed for the stable. All she had to do was—