“…you have hacked into another pack’s territory.”
There comes a day in the hunting field when, despite the sport, you have to pull out. Your horse has thrown a shoe, or maybe your wife is in labor. Possibly the hounds have crossed the ridge into the next county and you have a winded horse. Or you notice the sun has set and you are six miles from the trailers.
And here is the challenge: how do you get back to the fixture?
Pulling out requires planning. Otherwise, as the field rides on with hounds, you could find yourself alone, surrounded by ripples of ridges upholstered in forest and stitched down with creeks, with nary a street sign in sight. The first time this happens, you bravely kick your horse crabbing and balking along a strange trail. You consult the angle of the sun, make some educated guesses about left versus right, then smile broadly as trailers come into view, only to find the trailers appear…unfamiliar, because you have hacked into another pack’s territory.
So have a plan. First, try to estimate when you’ll be pulling out. Don’t wait for a text message saying, “Are you close? Should we close the casket?” Pick a time.
Second, ride next to other people known to pull out early, preferably someone who has been hunting this fixture long enough to have witnessed the Great Hound Match of 1905. Barring that, if pulling out is a regular feature of your hunting life, learn to latch onto that former whipper-in who knows every rock and twig in the territory and follow him when he departs. Just be sure he’s going in and not being pressed into service by the Master to lead the new huntsman through unpaneled territory full of bogs and barbed wire.
Sometimes it is useful to ask the Field Master for directions. This can be tactfully couched so as not to reveal the fact that you are lost. “I’m sorry but I need to pull out. My husband is having a heart transplant. Which way should I go to avoid interfering with hounds?”
There’s generally a moment when several people decide to pull out together. This gives everyone the presumed benefit of combined intelligence about the best way back. When you reach a fork in the trail, you can argue about which way is south and study the hoofprints until the first flight circles back and leads you in.
In my experience, people who pull out early rarely return to the fixture before the main body of the field. They walk and maybe trot, take the long way around to avoid fouling the scent, explore other territory and reach the meeting place just as everyone is packing up the tailgate.
The only exception I recall was a seventy-ish woman who regularly pulled out as soon as hounds got out of sight of the trailers. Once when I was on a young horse, she asked me to tell her when I pulled out. On the way in we had to jump a little fence with no gate. Even though she was riding the most reliable, safe, honest hunting horse in North America, she insisted that I give her a lead with my three-year-old. Really? I thought.
But then, at least she’s still hunting, if only for twenty minutes at a time. And we definitely got back to the trailers in time for the tailgate.
Posted November 14, 2018
Robin Traywick Williams is the author of Bush Hogs and Other Swine. Rita Mae Brown calls her “the country Seinfeld.” Visit Robin’s website for more of her books and blogs.