Tivington Nott (15 page)

With a light shake of his body, as if to rid himself of the last of his sleep, he moves off. With a lurching, easy canter he goes past us and down the hill towards Winn Brook, following almost the exact line taken by Tolland earlier, his pace so seemingly leisured that it makes me feel as though if I made a real effort I could catch him on foot. He’s travelled less than a hundred yards when five clamouring hounds, with Bellman in the lead, scramble from the woods. Perry spurs his pony forward and intercepts them, cracking his whip and calling on each of them by name. When they come out of the wood, with their ears flattened by the wind and their sterns down, the dogs look to be travelling at twice the stag’s speed, but they make up no ground on him. In fact he pulls away from them effortlessly. His action is genuinely deceptive; an unhurried long bounding movement really, which distances him swiftly, but which gives at the same time an impression of something a little ungainly. Watching him go away down the hill I see it is a hesitation in his stride, just at the instant he thrusts with his hind legs, a last half-chance to alter direction before the effort is fully committed. Perry has to lay in to a couple of his dogs before they’re prepared to take him seriously. This close sight and hot scent of their quarry is maddening them and they hate to give up the chase! We watch the stag until he disappears around the promontory of trees. He’s doing the opposite of what everyone perched up there on Winsford Hill was hoping he’d do, and many of them will go home today without having seen him. As far as they’re concerned he may as well not exist.

The moment the stag rounds the trees and is out of our sight, Perry snatches his short hunting horn out of his coat and rips out a blast. Then, spurring Kit forward and urging the tufters ahead of him, without a glance at Grabbe or me, he gallops full pelt back across the stubble towards the village.

Shaken by the strange shrill blast of the horn so close to his ear, Kabara leaps in behind the huntsman and we’re off whether I like it or not. I glance back at Grabbe. He’s not moving. His job’s done. But I’ve no time for waving. Kabara’s tucked himself in close behind Perry’s bounding mare and I’d better watch where we’re going if I want to stay up. Perry drives at the hounds, his reins gathered tightly in his left hand and his right hand jamming the mouthpiece of the horn to his lips, blowing repeatedly a rising four-syllable note, rousing the countryside, announcing to all hunters that a warrantable stag has gone away out of his covert and has begun to run.

There’s nothing sweet or musical in the sound the horn makes, but something mad. A sound filled with alarm. Putting us on edge. Startling our nerves. Kabara lunges and dances unevenly in his stride and snatches the bit angrily at each blast. It’s getting us going, though! Giving our hearts a shot of something!

A bit out of control, we gallop in a tight fast formation across the stubble-field and plough straight through the brook as if it’s not there, showering each other from head to foot with an explosion of silt-filled spray, the shrilling note of the horn jabbing out around us, penetrating the wooded combes and jarring awake everything in them. This frenzied blaring of the persistent horn striking aside the calm summer morning. Like someone having a fit. Neither the stallion nor I see the bank until it is nearly too late. We smash down the sudden slope into the water, Kabara driven almost to his knees by the shock of his landing, and throwing me on to his neck, but recovering at a stride and ‘catching’ me with the saddle he pounds strongly across the river, his nose inches from Kit’s thrashing tail; one unlucky step on these smooth stones and here’s a violent end to it already! We slam up the far bank and skid out on to the hard black surface of the road, my left stirrup swinging wildly, leaping after these hurtling tufters as if we intend to ride them down and destroy them, Perry still blowing his crazy horn full blast!

We pull up outside the pub, people converging on us from all directions. As if they’re coming to gawk at an accident. Rushing at us. Staring. Scared of missing out on something vital. The riders among them worrying how they’re going to make sure of getting into a good position in a few minutes when Perry lays the pack on the stag’s scent—lose touch with what’s happening now and they know they could be out of it for the rest of the day. May as well not have bothered to turn up in that case. And the horde are returning down the road from Winsford Hill too. Anxious cantering riders blocked by the cars! Shrieking kids dashing in and out everywhere, daring the situation. Anything might happen. Up the hill one minute, down again the next. And here come Tolland and Mrs Grant, pushing through with the other tufters that went after the wrong stag. Perry’s not waiting for them. He’s given Kit into someone’s hands and he’s climbed on to a fresh hunter. He’s going straight for the yard and the howling black hole.

‘Open it!’ he orders, and three labourers nearly break their necks trying to be the one to do the job for him. The door swings open and here they come! Sixty eager hounds rush out! Falling over each other and yelping and leaping around the place. Fresh! Mad to go and get that stag! Bringing in to the yard with them the stench of their confinement, hot and aggressive. Bristles stiff and erect along their spines, they rush at the tufters, snapping and snarling and sniffing and licking, thrusting their muzzles here and there, urgent for a lingering taste of that magic scent! Perry’s maddening horn has told them a huntable stag has been roused, has been seen, has almost been touched by their privileged comrades! Now they can’t wait to go! Their freedom’s only minutes away. Let’s run and get him!

The tension’s too much for one young horse. Before his rider can grab the reins he drops his head and arches his back and goes leaping and stiff-legging around the yard, scattering people and dogs and horses in every direction, miraculously stamping on no one. What a sight! The Wild West! But the young woman on his back knows what she’s doing and doesn’t even look like coming off him. She just goes red in the face and tenses up.

Perry couldn’t care less about all that stuff.
His
face is set to what’s ahead of him. He’s blowing his horn again and leading Mrs Allen’s pack of hounds out to stick them on to that stag’s track. Nothing’s going to stop him hunting the beast now! And we’re all falling in behind him. Forming up. Just as keen. It’s a cavalcade. A procession. Show time. The people on foot feel like cheering us. You can see it. We’re crusaders going out. Death and glory! It’s written all over us. We’re pressing and pushing and jostling and bumping each other and we don’t care. We’re enjoying it. We’re getting close to each other. You can smell us. There’s horses letting go all over the place; great for the rhubarb! We should be singing. Who knows a good song? And here’s the woman on the buckjumper, her stirrup clashing against mine. She’s happy now, delighted.

‘You saw him go away, didn’t you?’ She has to shout to make me hear.

‘He galloped down to Winn Brook in the sunlight, towards Withycombe.’

We both laugh.

‘Wonderful!’ she says, gazing, a flame in her eyes, seeing the leaping red stag in her imagination, until the tide of horses pushes us apart again, then waving. She’s a local.
She’s
only young, but I bet her people have been here for ever. A thousand years.
They
are all here. They’ve come out of the woodwork for the day. Out of the woodwork and the stonework of the old houses that are stuck away among the coverts and combes and the dark plantations of this place. Not tourists these people, but they’re out in strength all the same. They’re showing their strength! Putting on a show. It’s
their
customs that have stuck Perry up front blowing that horn and dressed in his threadbare scarlet coat. This business belongs to them. And they’ve dressed up for it too. They’re riding thousand-pound horses whether they can really afford to own them or not!

There’s Cheyne and the Tiger! They’re coming down the road, or trying to. Boxed in behind a mass of vehicles and riders. Tolland’s found his place at the tail of the pack and he raises his cap, waving it and catching Cheyne’s attention. He flags across in the direction of Winn Brook and Cheyne acknowledges the signal gratefully; he and the Tiger at once give up trying to force a passage through the crowd and turn down over the bank of the river. A few others pick up on what they’re doing and follow them. We turn down over the bank ourselves, forced into a bottleneck, and we cross the river.

We are quiet now as we enter the stubble-field. This is it. Everyone subdued by the thought of having to really face up to it. We all know that the weaknesses of riders, as well as of horses and hounds, will be revealed before the day’s out. It’s inevitable. It’s a gruelling business, chasing a mature stag to his death. People have broken their necks trying it. There’s a rider waiting out there in the field. It’s Lord Harbringdon.

As Perry leads the pack to cross the foil of the stag Harbringdon rides to intercept him. Maybe he knows something extra. It’s quite possible. For there’s Mrs Allen’s car, silhouetted against the skyline, already stationed on the Withypool road, way up the hill the other side of Winn Brook! How did she get there? And that’s Grabbe who’s leaning there talking to her, his pony munching the grass on the verge a few feet away, looking rather relaxed from here. Not so much up there to see the stag away, as to watch Perry lay on the pack. I’ll bet those field-glasses are doing their job. Scanning around. Not missing much. And she could still have a view of the quarry as well as of us from there. Who knows what she and Grabbe can see?

Harbringdon and Perry are having a consultation and we bunch up behind them, waiting. Some impatience starting to show in the ranks.

Jiggling and snorting and prancing around going on. The delay beginning to irritate some. Pushing and shoving too. Positioning, and certain people not as polite about it as they had been earlier. Nastiness coming out here and there. I see Mrs Grant giving a loud-mouthed tourist a fierce look. He’d better watch his manners, or she might hand him something more substantial; capable, I’d say, of swinging her steel stirrup into someone’s teeth.

A few riders decide they’ve had enough of this and they begin heading off up the hill behind us. From what they’re saying, they’re apparently placing their bets on the stag doubling back this way later in the day; but maybe privately, too, they’ve realised they’re not quite as keen as they thought they were for a run with these fresh hounds; saying nothing about that though.

And here we go. We’re off again. Moving along after Perry; like impatient kids in a cinema queue. It looks as though we might be going down to the point of the trees. Harbringdon must have given a convincing reason for all this. Perry doing as he’s told!

Kabara’s close to a start. He’s responding to the tension; munching his bit fiercely, tossing his head and not liking that martingale. A pity I hadn’t slackened it off those couple of notches while I had the chance earlier, while the Tiger was out of the picture. It’s too late now. I’m not getting off at this point. I might never get back on again! Kabara’s Irish blood is heating up fast at the prospect of a big run. He’s going to be a handful-and-a-half in a minute. There’s a mighty surge of energy flowing through the springs and muscles of his powerful body, and he’s not far from doing something spectacular. I hope I can stay with him when he goes. Whatever happens, it’s not going to be
my
decision. I keep talking to him and trying to ease the situation along the best way I can, somehow convince him to wait for the signal. And hope it’s not too long coming. But I see I’m not the only one round here who’s unsure where he’s going, or when. There goes the buckjumper, having another little fling.

There’s nothing certain for anyone here about the outcome of today. Once we’re away not even Jack Perry can predict the result, though he’ll be doing his best to determine it. And there’ll be plenty of bets riding on him
and
the Haddon stag. Which is one good reason why, though they’re not coming with us, even those three labourers who were at the kennel door back there won’t be able to settle to their work again until they’ve heard how this business has turned out. They’ll be waiting to hear what gets decided. One way or the other.

Here’s the Tiger, coming in alongside me. His face flushed, his fat hands a little too solid on the reins; the Tiger’s all hard red muscle and veins sticking out. Sixty. Pumped up for action. Finisher’s feeling his oats too and steps in stiffly, sideways, giving us a whinny of recognition, his neck lathered by the constant rubbing of the tight reins and saliva dripping freely from his lips. The Tiger pulls up to look at Kabara, who’s started whistling through his nose, and he stares at him, risen a little in his saddle and wide-eyed, not examining the stallion critically, but gazing at him, holding Finisher forward of his shoulder then, after a minute, pulling back and turning his attention to me. ‘How is he, boy?’

‘Ready to go,’ I say, letting out a nervous laugh. I’m fully occupied. Kabara’s fuse is about to fizzle any second. I think I might have my teeth clenched.

‘You’re managing him?’ Is he joking? Like anyone, the Tiger knows this is the moment when temperament is proved. And I suppose that’s what he’s come over to check on. But it’s pretty obvious he’s not really
seeing
Kabara, or me either for that matter. What’s undoubtedly still mesmerising him, is what he spied back there in the brazen sunlight, next to the rick in Solomon’s; the dangling dream. If he were seeing the real Kabara now, instead of that, he’d forget forever any ideas of hunting on him, and would be thankful for the reprieve from a suicidal notion. Just look at the way he’s holding Finisher in! Binding the horse. Kabara would be in flames at that, up in the air and over backwards in a flash with that kind of pressure on him. It would be so quick the Tiger would never know what had happened to him. Crushed. Blackness. Sudden and complete. No purple stars either! It’s compromise or it’s nothing with a horse like this one. Give and take. But mostly it’s give a little, then give a bit more, until you’ve
felt
your way through the crisis. A matter of finding a way with Kabara. He hasn’t got a temperament to be mastered. Not even by the strongest hands.