by Ellen Riggs
“Trouble in the henhouse?” I asked.
The triple “no” pant came again as he emerged into the cold, his breath steaming out behind him like a banner.
“What then?” My visions of a good dung-bashing were fading fast. “Drama Llama and the thugs?” The donkeys and camelids normally didn’t come in unless it was brutally cold. Charlie had built them a shelter, which they dismissed as being for sissies and banged up with kicking. Keats’ squeals got louder as I racked my brains. “The only one left is…”
Yes-yes-yes. The pant came faster and the steam drifted away from the bristling dog.
“Wilma,” I said.
Keats went into a point at the empty pig pen. She was gone.
Chapter Six
“No-no-no,” I panted, running around the perimeter of Wilma’s pasture with Keats. “She can’t have escaped. We’ve done everything but build a fortress around Mount Wilma. We had her beat.”
The sly sow had escaped before, on both my watch and Hannah’s. She was a freewheeler who liked to explore both field and forest. A wallow in the fetid swamp on Edna’s property was her favorite fair-weather destination. She’d almost drowned me there once.
“How did she get out?” I called after Keats. “Show me.”
There was no reason to ask. He was already leading me to the spot where two slats in a very sturdy fence sat slightly ajar. It was as far from the barn as possible and completely out of sight from the house.
She was a smart pig, but she wasn’t that smart, at least in my estimation. I flattered myself that I knew her fairly well by now.
Wilma obviously had an accomplice with prehensile thumbs and enough sense to stay out of sight lines. Pulling out my phone, I texted Edna and then Jilly. My gloved thumb hovered over the next number. Was it worth the lecture?
Of course it was. My pig was running loose on what would be a very cold winter’s night. I needed all the backup I could get. Pressing speaker, I started back to the barn to get my gear.
“What?” The voice on the other end was even more clipped than usual.
“Hi to you, too,” I said.
“This had better be important,” Cori Hogan said. “I’m with a client.”
She was a respected and popular dog trainer in Dorset Hills, despite being nearly constantly available to help animals. Figured I’d catch her on the one day she was actually busy.
“I’d text if it weren’t important,” I said.
“Good idea,” she said. “Hang up and text.”
“Only it is important, Cori. Do I ever call you just to shoot the breeze?”
“I don’t shoot the breeze. And this is no time to start.” I could sense her black-gloved hand, with its orange middle finger, was gesticulating. When she was that intense, the fingers flew. “Maybe I just don’t want to deal with whatever you’re calling about right now. It’s always bad news.”
That was true. There was no one other than Kellan I talked to on the phone regularly, come to think of it. With Jilly in the house, I was covered for anything else. That meant my calls did mean trouble and people would start avoiding them eventually.
“Well? Is it bad news?” Cori continued. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please. I might even apologize. Although I wouldn’t count on it.”
I was inside the barn now, gathering what I thought I might need for the search. “You’re not wrong.”
“Try it in the affirmative. It sounds so much better.” She was brightening now, warming to whatever challenge lay ahead. “I’ll be more likely to help you out of whatever bind you’re in.”
“I said you’re right. I only call when I’m in trouble and I’m sorry about that. I promise to touch base now and then, just to see how you’re doing between emergencies, if you’ll gather the troops and come out right now. The more, the better, because she’s got a good head start. At least there are tracks.”
I set the phone on top of a post and wriggled into Charlie’s heavy fleece-lined overalls. I didn’t have time to go up to the house and get my own. On the plus side, I didn’t even need to take off my boots. On the negative, I wouldn’t be able to maneuver as well with the extra fabric. Wilma could outrun me at the best of times.
Cori sighed. “Spit it out or put Keats on the line.”
“Let me ask you this. Of all the animals, which would you least like to hunt down?”
“Wilma,” she said without hesitation. “Because she’s smarter than the average sow and twice as mean.” There was a pause. “Tell me it’s not Wilma.”
“Then I’d be lying. Because she’s gone. And worse, someone set her free.”
“Not again. It seems like just yesterday I was tracking her through the bush with Hannah. It was warmer then.”
“At least the swamp’s frozen,” I said. “At least I think so. I haven’t had reason to check. That’s the first place I’ll go.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Cori said. “We only have a few hours till dark so we need to deploy with military precision. I’ve already sent out the 911. I’ll swing home to get Clem, and Remi can bring Leo. She’s spoiled him for regular work but he does have the beagle nose.”
“Edna’s on her way and Jilly’s trying my family. Somehow they’re always conveniently unavailable when there’s an animal crisis. Asher and Kellan are on evening shift.”
“Just as well,” Cori said, calling goodbye to her client and then raising her voice as the engine of her truck turned over. “Kellan hates taking orders from me as much as I love giving them.”
I laughed. “There can only be one commander in chief and when it comes to rescue, you get the badge.”
“Flattery is usually wasted on me but in this case, I’ll take it,” Cori said. “Is that Edna’s ATV roaring up?”
“Yep. I only left her half an hour ago but she’s already in fatigues.”
“We can only hope to be as cool as she is by eighty,” Cori said.
Having surrendered me into Edna’s capable hands, Cori hung up without a goodbye. I explained what I’d found while I trapped Keats and wrestled him into his coat. Make that one of his coats. I had a few now in strategic locations, ready to ambush him when the need arose. Despite a winter of unrelenting cold, he continued to turn into a spineless deadweight at the mere sight of a jacket. Sometimes he threw in trembling and whining for dramatic effect.
“Get it together, fearsome fur hero,” I grunted, trying to connect the Velcro as he recovered muscle tone and started squirming. “This is a job for superdog, but in all the stories, he’s wearing a down coat.”
“I’m glad you’re taking this so well,” Edna said. “It’s like sabotage is all in a day’s work for you now.”
“Hardly. But rounding up all the livestock at Vinnie’s was tougher than this, right?”
Her frown said otherwise. “I can’t rope that pig and I did try the day she was in my garden.”
“There are tracks. You can circle out front on the ATV and the dogs will work with you to herd her back. I’m sure she won’t go far in this cold.”
Edna drew down her eyebrows to add to the frown. “Wilma’s finally found some fool to set her free and she’s not going to blow a chance like this.”
“Who would set her free?” I asked. “And better yet, why?”
Now the eyebrows and the frown got a little help from rolling eyes. “You’re about as smart as Wilma so I’m sure you can hazard a guess. Who just threatened you?”
“Becky Bower? Why would she do that?”
“I doubt she did it herself. She couldn’t have been in two places at once. But I’m guessing one of the crew managed to slip away while we were over there and made a statement you’d understand back here.”
“And the statement is what? That I should back their stupid copycat show?”
“Something like that.”
Jilly walked into the barn in heavy winter clothes that still managed to look polished, except for the bag over her shoulder that contained the ever-stylish marmalade cat.
“Becky seemed very concerned about Ivy’s supposed likability. I guess she’s got the ‘it’ factor,” Edna said, shaking her head. Her perm was completely hidden by her heaviest weight camo hat with fleecy earmuffs. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
“That’s crazy. As if I could compete with Vivian Crane, a star in the reality space.” I shook my head, too. “After being the grim reaper of HR, it’s impossible to imagine a world where I’ve got any ‘it.’”
“You’ve got something all right,” Edna said. “Look no further than Chief Hotstuff for confirmation.”
Keats mumbled something that sounded indignant.
“Exactly, buddy,” I said. “The only thing remarkable about me is my dog. Keats has the ‘it’ factor.”
“They know that, too. Poor Byron is sloppy seconds,” Jilly said. “Becky’s likely pounding the virtual pavement looking for Keats’ twin right now.”
“Good luck with that,” I said. “There’s no match in this universe.”
His next mumble didn’t even strive to be humble.
“If they tried to undermine you by setting Wilma free, it’ll backfire,” Jilly said. “Especially if we can find proof. Asher’s coming out to look for evidence.”
“He won’t find much,” I said, pulling out my phone to show them the pictures. “They raked over human prints and then hopped onto an ATV. From what little I could see, they drove toward the highway.” I enlarged one photo. “This one’s good though. See that crushed bush? It looks like someone went down hard, very likely with a pig on top of them. Her prints are all over and they couldn’t fully rake their embarrassment away.”
“Let the cops deal with that,” Jilly said. “We’ll find Wilma, and if this is about Faraway Fake Farm, it will blow over as soon as they realize you’re no threat to ratings.”
I sighed. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish I’d taken Evie up on her offer.”
“Too late, yet never too late,” another voice said. It was Evie, walking into the barn with a big Rescue Mafia contingent. There were familiar faces—Cori, Bridget and Remi—and many I hadn’t met before. I’d had plenty of animal emergencies, but apparently this ranked higher than the others. They probably all knew Wilma and what she was capable of doing.
“Do you really think it’s them?” Jilly asked. “It’s one thing to talk smack about Ivy and another to put her animals in jeopardy.”
“I wouldn’t put it past any reality show to do just that,” Evie said. “It’s just like politics. Discrediting you and your standard of care would benefit them.”
“Right,” I said. “People will latch onto the message that I can’t keep my pig home and safe, whereas all is fresh and whitewashed for Vivian at Faraway Farm.”
“Sounds about right,” Cori said, directing us all out into the driveway with much flashing of orange fingers. “Hannah went through exactly the same thing when our former mayor targeted her.”
“Evie, you countered that with The Princess and the Pig,” Remi said, setting Leo’s four white paws on the snow-covered gravel. Normally she clutched him like a baby in tense moments, but he was needed on active duty. “Can’t you do it again?”
“They’ve got more firepower. Vivian Crane has a following and while she might not know much about farming, she has plenty of creds in entertaining and food.”
“I hate to say it but I liked her Cupcake Millionaire show,” Remi said.
Cori held a finger to her lips. The orange one. “Leave the cupcake talk till the pig is safe.”
“And others are safe from the pig,” Evie added. “That would be exactly the kind of story that would get us in trouble. If Wilma was… well, Wilma.”
“I think Wilma gets a bad rap,” Remi said. “I was there the day Hannah rescued her. This pig was neglected, abused and overbred. It’s no wonder she’s a little cranky.”
Remorse swirled through me like black smoke. I’d never been as fond of Wilma as many of the other animals, especially Alvina the alpaca, and now Bocelli and Clippers. That was mainly because Wilma had almost killed me. She also frequently proved that I was batting out of my league as a hobby farmer. Over and over she outsmarted me and even Keats. We couldn’t think like a pig. Still, Remi’s words reminded me that Wilma was just a rescue animal with a traumatic past. In time she might overcome it, just as I had. At least, mostly.
We spread out in what I’d come to know as typical rescue formation: a long horizontal line, walking a few yards apart. That way we couldn’t miss anything.
Normally we moved slowly and steadily but today we had prints and dogs with good noses. We had to move fast before the scent and prints faded with fresh snow, not to mention darkness closing in. The days were supposedly getting longer now but it sure didn’t feel like it.
The walking was hard and hazardous with the crusty white blanket concealing logs and, it eventually turned out, bogs. A soaker flooded my boot not far from what I called the pig pool near Edna’s lane.
“Why isn’t this frozen?” I asked, hopping as I emptied my boot. “Is it a magical pig bog?”
“There’s a deep underground creek,” Edna said. “Moving water doesn’t usually freeze. And we’ve had a few thaws.”
“She was here,” Cori said, kneeling. “Poked around by the looks of things and thought better of it.”
We moved on.
And moved on.
The bush all started to look the same. No one else seemed to flag but me, so I attributed it to my wet foot, which felt like it was packed in ice. I thought about the most recent murder victim, who’d been discovered in a similar situation, and shuddered.
Keats circled back and touched my glove with his nose. “It’s okay. Thank you, though.”
“Lock it down, Ivy,” Cori called to me. “The dog can’t work at peak capacity if he’s worried about your delicate feelings.”
Jilly reached out and squeezed my arm as Keats returned to lead the pack. His tail was up and his ears forward. At least someone was having a good time.
“We’ll get through this together,” she said. “Just as we have everything else.”
Edna was on my other side, having found the terrain too treacherous for the ATV. She delivered a “buck up” punch to my shoulder. “Look on the bright side. It’s not a murder.”
“True,” I said. “Isn’t it strange when the absence of murder needs to be noted?”
“Unlike many, I see the upside in those murders,” Edna said. “We’ve become uniquely qualified to deal with what’s coming.”
“In the zombie apocalypse?” Jilly asked, smiling.
“Any kind of apocalypse, natural or otherwise. Outside the military, it’s normally difficult to get boots-on-the-ground training.”
“Hello!” Cori’s voice was a verbal slap with a glove. “This isn’t a tea party. If that pig is in earshot, she’s running in the other direction.”
“She must be ready to come home,” I said, hoping my quaver came off as cold instead of fear. “It’s freezing, and nearly dark.”
“That won’t bother Wilma,” Cori said. “She’d take freedom over a cushy stall any day. Why do you think she prefers to be outside all the time?”
I sighed. “Because she’s been training for this moment.”
Cori laughed. “Maybe. The point is, she’ll be fine. She’s got a good coat of fur and about a hundred extra pounds on her.”
“Wilma is not overweight,” I said. “She’s perfectly proportioned… for a pig.”
“Oh, she’s fat all right,” Edna said. “You keep trying to buy her love with food. That never works, with animals or children.”
“Ouch.” I rarely took offense at Edna’s comments but I was sensitive at the moment and Keats couldn’t take the edge off for me.
Edna shrugged. “I call it like I see it.”
I was almost miserable eno
ugh to comment on her record of terrorizing children in the school vaccination program, but reminded myself that she was doing the best she could at the time. Maybe I could give myself the same grace. But not till this was over.
“I’m glad Wilma is pleasantly plump,” Jilly said. “That will help if she’s on the loose for a bit.”
“She’ll find shelter eventually,” Cori said. “The only problem is that this pig can cover a lot of ground. She’s surprisingly agile for an overfed—”
“Never mind,” I said. “What about predators?”
“The only risk is coyotes—and it would take a pack of them, considering her size. I’m not too worried about that.”
“It’s the human predators we need to worry about,” Evie called from further down the line.
Horror ran through me like an underground creek. “You think someone would hunt my poor pig?”
“In an apocalypse, maybe,” Edna said. “No one else hunts around here, and even I gave that up. Social stigma.”
“I meant human predators who dine on gossip and reputations,” Evie said. “You could be the trophy on their walls if we don’t find Wilma quickly.”
Cori raised her glove and all I could see in the fading light was the orange flare. “We’ve got to call it a night. It won’t do Wilma—or any of the animals we help—any good if we fall or freeze. Let’s regroup tomorrow.”
“Come back to the inn for dinner, at least,” Jilly said. “It may not be cupcakes, but I can throw something together.”
“Vivian seemed nice in that show,” Remi said. “I guess it’s hard to be tough around cupcakes.”
“The season premiere of Faraway Farm is tonight,” Evie said. “They shot most of it in a studio in Boston.”
“Should be good for a laugh,” Cori said, turning the troops.
“Or a clue as to our next steps,” Evie said, arms flailing as she slid across a small pond. “We’ve got to handle these people carefully. One wrong move and tensions could escalate.”
Shivering, I reached automatically for Keats’ ears. To my surprise, they were ready and waiting. He’d given up one job for another.