Demon Child

that it was dangerous. If we trap the critter, she and I will stay well back from the action.”
        “I don't think it's a woman's place,” Richard said.
        “And where is my place?” she asked.
        He did not reply.
        “Oh, look here, Richard,” Hobarth said. “It's mostly a game. You look around at these stalwart men of yours and tell me differently. They're all out for sport. If a single man here is expecting danger, I'd be surprised.”
        “ I'm expecting danger,” Richard replied.
        “Are you really?” Hobarth asked.
        Richard looked at Jenny, appeared to be ready to say something, then shrugged. “She might as well stay,” he said. He reined his horse to the right and went back to the front of the column.
        Walter leaned across and patted her right hand which gripped the pommel of the saddle.
        “He frightens me,” she said, though she had not intended to confide in Walter-or in anyone. Not just yet, at least. She did not want to make a fool out of herself if Richard's rudeness proved to be nothing more sinister than mere bad manners.
        “Who? Richard?”
        “Yes.”
        Hobarth looked after the Brucker heir. “He's
very self-contained, I think. Too self-contained. We all need to open ourselves to other people now and again.”
        Richard swiveled a quarter turn in his saddle and addressed the mounted men behind him. “We follow the dogs. We stay in a single group unless the dogs split up. Then, Trooper Halliwell, Gabe, Rudy, Samson and I will form one party. The rest of you will form the other. Both Dr. Hobarth and Jenny will be in the second group. Neither has a gun or is more than an observer, so look after them if the need arises.”
        Everyone gave Jenny and the doctor a covert but still obvious inspection.
        Richard turned to Gabe Atchison. “Are they ready?”
        “They're more than,” Gabe said.
        Richard turned back to his fellow hunters. “And remember: no indiscriminate shooting. If we spot it, the dogs will run it down and corner it. We'll shoot it like a pig in a pen.”
        Several of the men nodded agreement.
        Richard looked back at Gabe Atchison. “Okay,” he said. “Turn them loose.”
        Atchison yelped something that sounded like it was in a foreign language. The dogs replied. A caterwauling mass of tails and legs and snouts stumbled over each other and were off-all in the same direction, across the open fields to the north of the stables, toward the dense woods.
        “None of the woods is too thick for single-file horsemanship,” Richard said.
        Then they were off.
        The thunder of horse's hooves made Jenny's teeth vibrate in her jaw. The ground bounced around them as her mare galloped to keep up with the others.
        Walter waved at her and bent toward his own stallion's neck. He was obviously enjoying all this.
        She decided she would too. She hugged her mare and let it go full steam toward the shadowy forest at the top of the long, rising field.

----

    12
        
        The hounds reached the woods and ran parallel to the trees, their noses to the ground, ears flapping, barely managing to keep out from under one another. They might have been a comic sight if their purpose and their prey had not been so grisly. Several times, they stopped to regain the scent, backtracked a few feet, turned and hurried confidently forward, whining and snuffling, now and then pausing to bay in anticipation as they inclosed on their quarry.
        For those on horseback, it was alternately exciting and trying. One moment, they would be urging their mounts forward at top speed in order not to lose the hounds. The next moment, the hounds had stopped, forcing the hunters to rein in and mark time until the next frantic burst of forward movement.
        Jenny didn't mind the breaks as much as the others, for she was not accustomed to such a furious pace and needed the short moments of rest to regain her breath and reposition herself in the saddle. Too, the pauses gave her and Walter time to talk, exchange brief observations on the hunt and the land. She valued these especially. Every time they spoke and shared a joke, she was less apprehensive about the day ahead and where it might lead them.
        After they had run along beside the fringes of the forest for more than five-hundred yards, the hounds surprised the men following them by abruptly taking to