Excerpts from Fox, Fin, &
Feather:
The Day They Ran off
Collier Mountain
Through the years, we went to many of Harry
Rhett's famous hunt weeks with their exceptional hospitality. One year,
however, I was very concerned because he invited us to hunt our hounds on the
final Saturday after the hunt ball Friday night. I was afraid that excess
gaiety at the hunt ball might result in my being a somewhat inactive huntsman
on Saturday. Well, we went to the hunt ball and Harry got up and made a long
speech about what a celebrated pack of hounds we had to hunt the next day and
what wonderful hunting they had enjoyed all week, all the marvelous adventures
and so forth. The more he talked,the more I realized that we were going to have
a blank day the next day, and that we were going to be greatly embarrassed by
the Mooreland hounds that had already acquitted themselves so well.
The
next morning when we got up to get ready to go out to the casting ground, Harry
came in and said, "Henry, I've got bad news for you. The wind has shifted
around, it's out of the southeast, and we never have any scent with a
southeast wind. I'm so sorry that this has happened, but it's just one of those
things. We've had such good climatic conditions all week, the hounds have run
so well, and they've accounted for their foxes. They've shown everybody such
tremendous sport. I'm just so sorry this has happened to you." Well, I was
lower than a toad in a ditch by the road, but what Harry came with next was
even worse. He said, "Besides that, the temperature's gone up about twelve
degrees. Instead of being in the low thirties like it has been every morning
when we started, this morning it's about forty-two or forty-three degrees and
it feels like a tropical heat wave out there it's so warm and sunny." Then he
offered what I suppose he thought was consolation. "But maybe we'll be lucky
and there won't be as many people out today since there was a hunt ball last
night. Maybe you won't have as big a field."
With this scant thread of
hope, I finished my breakfast and we went out to the meet. I prayed and prayed
that the field would be minuscule but instead I got there and found there was a
huge field; absolutely everybody from the hunt ball the night before was there
and many others as well. I thought, "If only Harry won't repeat any of his
speech, maybe we can get this over with quickly." Just then, Harry looked up
and said, "Oh my God!"
"What's wrong, Harry?" I asked.
"There's
Miss J. H. She's the worst jinx in foxhunting, an infallible omen of a
blank day. We have never had a hound open when she has been hunting with us.
She comes about once a year or every other year maybe, and she is absolutely
death to fox chasing."
I thought, "Here we are with a southeast wind, a
tropical heat wave, a long speech, and the jinxing J. H. What in the world am I
going to do?" However, Harry was undeterred. He got on his horse, gathered up
the field (there must have been eighty to one hundred people there), and gave
the same long, impossible-to-live-up-to speech he gave the night before, all
about a celebrated pack and so forth. I was absolutely about to dig a hole for
me and my horse.
There is one hill in that flat Huntsville country
called Collier Mountain, even though it is only about three hundred feet high.
Harry suggested I draw the side of Collier Mountain on the way into the
wildlife preserve. So I set off that way and was riding along wondering what in
the world I was going to be able to do to show any sport, when suddenly
somebody viewed a large buck deer with a quite handsome rack coming off the
side of Collier Mountain. Just then I heard a hound open and I thought, "Uh oh,
they're going to run that deer. In addition to everything else, they're going
to embarrass me by running a deer right out here in front of all of these
people who have seen these other fine packs and heard Harry's damn speech
twice." So I was just about to blow the hounds back and call them to me when I
heard Johnny Gray's voice, way off to the side, shouting a "Tallyho!"
I
immediately turned and galloped to Johnny and he said, "These rabbit hunters
over here saw the fox come by with Ladybug only about ten or fifteen yards
behind it." I thought, "Hallelujah!" But I said, "Hike to Ladybug!" And hike
they did. We came off the side of Collier Mountain out into the cotton fields
right there at the edge of the reservation, and when I looked back I saw the
hounds streaming across the cotton field and the buck deer crossed right
through the middle of the pack, jumping hounds and, what luck, the deer was
going one way and the hounds were going another. So I yelled to everybody in
the field to see that the hounds were not running a deer, they were running a
fox.
Just about that time, the fox crossed the dirt road and went into
the swamp and I walked into that swamp, only to be greeted by a deafening
silence. What in the world? How in the world could my hounds have lost that fox
when they were that close up on it? I just can't believe this! What in the Sam
Hill am I going to do now?
Then I heard her way off in the swamp, "Auk,
Auk-Auk, Auk." It was that three-legged bitch, Ladybug! Then Lavender,
Larkspur, Lisa Lou, Sewanee, Harpeth Lassie, Heather, and Grit all joined in. I
blew, I hollered, and I came running back to the field and jumped up on my
horse and we took out after that fox.
It was one of the greatest runs,
with all hounds on in a country where you could gallop a horse like you were at
the races. We would run best pace and then, if there was a little bobble, that
Ladybug would come through there, three-legged and all. She would come through
there "Auk, Auk-Auk, Auk" and Lyric, Hank, Hobo, and the gang would hark in
there and they would get going again. Those big old Trigg rolling mouths would
make the earth tremble with their cry.
Over and over, we could see the
fox crossing the green oat fields, and hear huge flocks of geese getting up
honking and hounds roaring. It was like that famous picture by Lionel Edwards
called Saint Gabriel's Hounds because the geese sounded like hounds, the
hounds sounded like they were flying, and the ruby red fox was right in front
of them crossing those emerald green fields. We ran, and we rolled, and we
slashed, and we dashed, until we saw the fox go to ground about ten feet in
front of the lead hounds. I galloped up and jumped off my horse by the den, put
my head down in it for a good whiff to make sure the fox was there,
congratulated the hounds, stood up, turned around, took off my cap, made a deep
bow, and said, "That, ladies and gentlemen, is the way we do it in a southeast
wind."
I always thought that was a great run and a great time, but I was
totally unprepared for what has happened since. Time and again, I have been in
some far away place or going through an airport somewhere and somebody has
called my name, come up to me, and said, "I was there the day they ran off
Collier Mountain. What a run!" And for a moment, we stand and remember, caught
up in the mysterious bond of venery that connects all hunters, whether their
coats are of tailored scarlet wool or worn country denim.
So I give you
wishes for great hunts, when everything goes right, even on days it shouldn't,
with hounds all on, and the field all up. Then you, too, will know what it was
like the day they ran off Collier Mountain.
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The Pond Fish
While we were field trialing around and going
down to Bill and Joyce Brown's Fox Camp in Mississippi, Alice and I enjoyed the
company of the Browns' great friends, Jim and Louise Burke. Bill made sure the
Burkes were well mounted. With his characteristic generosity, he even gave
Louise his famous horse Frosty, which had retired the trophy in the High Jump
Class at the National Field trial for Foxhounds. The Burkes were great fun so
it did not surprise us much when Jim presented Bill with a nine-foot-nine inch
mounted sailfish, which weighed one hundred and eighteen pounds when
caught.
Now I do not think Joyce thought she needed that fish dominating
a room in her camp any more than Louise had fancied it in her elegant house. As
usual, Bill came up with the perfect answer. He thanked the Burkes profusely
for their wonderfully thoughtful gift and proceeded to hang it on the outside
wall of the camp where it was plainly visible to anybody passing in front of
the camp on the dirt road. It did not take long for the success of this
strategy to be confirmed. The next morning, while we were grooming horses to go
hunting, a pickup truck speeding up the road passed the front gate, slammed on
the brakes (throwing dust everywhere), backed up, came in the gate up the
driveway, and stopped to inspect the display.
"Mr. Brown," the driver
inquired, "what kind of fish be that there?"
"Where?" Bill innocently
responded.
"There on that there wall," pressed the awestruck driver,
pointing at the sailfish in all its splendor.
"Oh, that fish," Bill
answered. "That's a pond fish."
"Pond fish? Where do it come
from?"
"Don't you have any ponds over where you live?" asked Bill, now
back to brushing his horse.
"Yes, suh, sho' do, but I ain't never seen
nare fish like that there in any of them ponds over there."
"Well," said
Bill, finishing tacking up and glancing towards the kennel gate, "why don't you
come over here fishing some time?"
"Yes, suh, sho' 'nuff! We sho' thank
you, sho' 'nuff."
We got on our horses, opened the kennel gate, called
the hounds, and went hunting. About four hours later we came in to find about
thirty people arrayed around the pond with various poles and rods, intensely
tending to the business of fishing.
"How does it go?" hailed
Bill.
"It's sho' good, Mr. Brown," came the reply. "We done caught a
whole mess of crappie."
"Good, good, I'm glad," said Bill, walking on
and then adding like an afterthought, "How about pond fish? Have you caught
any?"
"No, suh, we ain't got nare one, but Roscoe and Horace saw
one."
One of the pleasures of camp thereafter was getting to know these
ardent sportsmen who tirelessly hunted the pond fish while we hunted the fox.
The Loch Ness monster itself could not have stirred up a more faithful
following than those who greeted us with tales of sightings of pond
fish.
That happened some years ago, but it would not surprise me to find
out that some ambitious angler is sitting with a pole by that pond this very
afternoon, as stories of sightings have periodically resurfaced in that
country.
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Epilogue
If I am ever eloquent, I want it to be in
praise and defense of that precious heritage that has allowed me a lifetime of
adventure in field sports. Not only the fun of it, but the enduring friendships
as well enrich my memory. Those characters who could jest at themselves while
jousting with danger taught me much. They are still teaching me whenever I
think back over the old times. Sometimes when I read a book, I am about
finished with it before I understand it. I do not want hunting, shooting,
chasing, and fishing to be the same way. These pastimes, which are so much part
of life in our country, are easily taken for granted. However, they must not
be. They are endangered species: an ominous storm is gathering over them. The
animal rights activists and anti-field sports lobby are already here. They are
attacking our way of life at every level with every artifice and weapon at
their command. In the media, in the legislatures, even in the county councils,
their persistence is unwavering, their passion unstinting. They have seized on
ritual and costume to signify class distinctions as symbols to be hated. To
finance their stealthy attack, they have raised enormous amounts of money in
the name of animal rights. They have spent lavishly to enhance their political
power to conduct a war on traditional pastimes of rural society. The political
animal lobbies' successes against those they characterize as bloodthirsty have
had the ironic effect of causing them to be more bloodthirsty themselves. They
refuse to acknowledge or fail to see that hunters and fishermen are the great
conservationists, who appreciate the relationship between habitat and
game.
How, then, are we going to resist, defy, and defeat them? By
uniting that army of hunters, fishermen, and shooters with the pet owners and
food growers of our land, and by creating alliances between them and the
sympathetically regarded institutions that will identify with the good works of
field sports enthusiasts, such as point-to-pointers, steeplechasers, and horse
show exhibitors. The Iroquois Steeplechase's alliance with the Vanderbilt
Children's Hospital is an excellent example. So are the Grand Prix horse show
classes and polo tournaments on behalf of Saddle Up, which treats the physical
disabilities of children who are beneficiaries of these activities.
This
clash of cultural values will be a long twilight struggle. Patience is
required. The opposition has staying power, but so do we. Moreover, we have a
long history of frontier experiences. There is in North America still the
cultural tradition of respect for the woodsman, the explorer, and the marksman.
The sportsman's right to bear arms remains a central tenet of the major
American political parties.
An egalitarian self-image goes into the
woods with the hunter. These outdoorsmen are an army. We must join with them to
defend their sport as they come shoulder to shoulder with us to resist the
extinction of ours. When they understand how intertwined our fates must be,
they will answer the clarion call and legions will emerge to protect the fields
and forests of their homelands. These sportsmen love the land. Their love, like
ours, is a passion not a game. This book is not just a reminiscence of amusing
and resourceful characters. It is a description of a way of life worth
protectring and defending to the last breath and the last rampart. The
predicate for an alliance among participants from various walks of life exists
in these stories. We must be, each of us, vigilant and determined. even now,
though we may not see them, the foes are at the wall.
For these field
sportsmen, the woods are a way of life and they are the descendants of the
armies of Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. Just as the foxhunter never forgets a
place where he viewed a fox or a coyote, so the deer hunter, rabbit hunter, or
turkey hunter never forgets that hallowed spot where he saw his game. They have
psychological ownership of those places, whatever the property records in the
register of deeds office may show. No matter the state of title, their state of
mind includes the atmosphere of that moment. They remember the vegetation, the
weather, and the light. They remember the excitement. It is for them a memory
of how they live and what they live for that remains with them,
always.
A sense of place connects them with other parts of the army in
defense of the countryside. Conservation easements are making a powerful impact
on our country. Landowners who care enough to preserve and protect the land and
its inhabitants "in perpetuity" are associating habitat with the lifestyles it
encourages. Conservation leads to restoration. The essential element of hunting
is that it makes use of the land and the creatures upon it in a sensitive,
sustainable way. Every hunter knows that permission is the foundation
ingredient of great hunting. From the whistle of wood ducks' wings as they go
to roost, to the morning call of doves, the land has its night music and the
prowl of its nocturnal predators to excite the imagination. Let us enjoy the
fun of our sports but leave as our heritage the opportunity for others to taste
the heady wine of danger and discovery as they savor the unequalled
exhilaration of the field sportsman. Good hunting. Good racing. Good fishing.
Good shooting. Good fun. Home safe.
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