The Hunt Ball Read Free

tricks on her.
    â€œChrist, they’ll all see us!” Valentina worried more about saving face than getting chewed out.
    â€œOne dollar.”
    â€œChrist isn’t swearing.”
    â€œChrist isn’t swearing. You are.” Felicity in a rare moment of dry humor held out her hand.
    â€œNot fair.” Valentina bit her lip.
    â€œOh, pay up. You’ve got more money than God anyway,” Tootie half-laughed.
    â€œSure,” Valentina said sarcastically.
    All of the girls came from wealthy families, but Valentina received the largest allowance and was the envy of the other students. To her credit she was generous.
    She forked over the dollar bill.
    â€œLook, they really are coming this way. Let’s slip back into the mists. We can bring up the rear right after they cross Broad Creek,” Tootie suggested.
    â€œFox could turn.” Felicity considered the gamble.
    â€œYes, but if he doesn’t, the crossing is up past the trees. We’ll hear them. If they turn, we’ll keep going until we find the hog’s back and then head toward Sister Jane’s.”
    The kennels were at Sister Jane’s farm, Roughneck Farm. Jane Arnold had been master of the Jefferson Hunt Club for over thirty years. Her late husband had also been a master.
    â€œVote.” Felicity thought this would short-circuit Valentina’s protest since Valentina hated agreeing readily with Tootie.
    â€œYou don’t have to vote.” Valentina turned toward Tootie, the mist rising a bit, swirling around the beautiful girl. “It’s a good plan.”
    â€œI can’t believe you said that,” Tootie giggled. “F., we’d better remember this day.”
    They would, but for quite different reasons.
    They backtracked fifty yards from the creek crossing.
    â€œWhy?” Felicity asked.
    â€œBecause the other horses will smell ours,” Tootie sensibly replied. “Go on back a little more.”
    â€œTootie, we’ll lose them again.” Valentina was more worried about Bunny and Mrs. Norton, the headmistress, than she cared to admit.
    â€œNo, we won’t. Let me be in front this time.”
    Tootie rode tail during the entire hunt, which is one of the reasons they got lost. Felicity, in front, didn’t have the best sense of direction. When the whole field jumped a black coop in the fog, they landed into a woods, ground covered with pine needles. Those needles soaked up the sound of hoofbeats. By the time Tootie got over the fence, Felicity had turned left instead of right with the others. It was too late to catch them. For ten minutes they couldn’t hear a thing, not the horses, not the hounds, not the horn. So Tootie led them south along Broad Creek since she could hear the water.
    Neither Valentina nor Felicity argued, since both knew Tootie was a homing pigeon.
    They quietly waited.
    A splash sent the ears of all three horses forward. The humans heard it, too.
    Comet reached their side of the bank, shook, then sauntered toward them.
    â€œYou three are as useless as tits on a boar hog,”
the male gray fox insulted them.
    â€œTally ho,” Felicity whispered as though the other two couldn’t see the fox sitting right in front of them.
    Tootie glared at her. One should not speak when the fox was close or when hounds were close. The correct response would be to take off your cap, point in the direction in which the fox would be traveling, and point your horse’s head in that direction also.
    â€œTally human.”
Comet flicked his tail, tilted his head. He could gauge the sound of the hounds far more accurately than the three girls before him.
“Well, chums, think I’ll motor on. You look ridiculous sitting here in the middle of the covert, you know.”
    He vanished.
    â€œHe barked at us!” Valentina was thrilled.
    â€œI’ve never been that close to a fox.” Felicity was awed and a little scared to look the