by Alex Bledsoe
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before. You mention it a lot, actually.”
“But I think I might’ve misjudged you.” She stood and slid onto his lap. She kissed him, ignoring his coffee breath, and the fact that he wore only boxers. In fact, she shifted to straddle him, arching her back so that she pressed against his chest.
“Do you know,” she said as she broke the kiss, “what happens to a woman when she gets pregnant?”
“I know the basics. Is there something in particular—?”
“Mm. Well, one of the side effects is that she gets really, really horny a lot.”
“A lot as in right now?”
“A lot as in I don’t care if we make it to the bedroom.”
“I don’t think this table would hold us both. Remember the last time.”
“The floor is just fine with me.”
“Aren’t you worried about linoleum burns?”
“Who said you were going to be on top?” Again she kissed him, and he forgot all about his coffee. He also, for a few brief blissful minutes, forgot that he’d watched her brother die and done nothing to help.
* * *
Dolph moved as silently through the cold forest as he could, his rifle across his right shoulder. It was below freezing, and his old bones felt the temperature more vividly than he ever remembered. The wind found all the little gaps in his layered clothing, biting at him like frozen mosquitoes. Once he’d bounded through forests like this even in the winter, up and down slopes, across frozen streams and ponds, with the agility of a deer leaping fences. Now his joints popped so audibly, it surprised him when he saw any animal he hadn’t spooked.
The only human tracks he’d seen in Half Pea Hollow were his own. The rest belonged to deer, raccoon, rabbit, and the occasional hungry squirrel. And, of course, the pigs. But they were rare in this season, and tended to be old and half-covered by the time he found them.
He moved a few yards at a time, watching the ground and carefully placing each step. He stopped and listened, then moved again. He’d seem some of the animals that left their sign. A few times he’d even spotted some coyotes before they spotted him, a rarity in any season. If he stayed out late enough, he heard owls.
But the animals he sought, the animal he sought, remained frustratingly out of sight except for those scarce, half-hidden tracks.
Dolph had been that bounding young man when he first took over this region in the late ’70s. There hadn’t been much poaching then, and the concept of canned hunts had been unknown. He encountered a few hunters who resented him because of his race, but not many.
He hated to be one of those guys lamenting the “good old days,” but truthfully, he missed them. For the most part, people got in trouble because they didn’t know the rules, not because they deliberately set out to break them. He handed out far more warnings than he did tickets, and people understood and respected guns. Anyone who stockpiled weapons was looked down on by true hunters as a weirdo; now the weirdos ran the asylum.
He didn’t envy Jack having the job now. People were just meaner: better armed, more dishonest, and much more trigger-happy. A gun was no longer a tool; it was a political statement. And that meant it was inevitable that a warden would eventually get shot down in the line of duty here.
He recalled one of his last professional encounters, with a fat redneck and his equally obnoxious wife, who’d been shooting deer from their truck. Despite Dolph catching them in the act, they refused to accept their summons, and Dolph was afraid to even try wrestling their bulks from their vehicle to arrest them. “There ain’t no sign saying we cain’t do that!” the woman kept mewling. “There ain’t no sign!” The man muttered about “nigras not knowing their place.”
It had been the final straw. The next day he put in for his retirement.
Now he sat on a rock, cold against his butt even through his hunting coveralls, and thought about the first fatality he’d ever investigated, on an equally cold day. A young man had waded into a pond to collect duck decoys after a fruitless morning, and had left his shotgun propped against a tree on shore. His retriever, also tied to the tree, managed to knock the gun over, and when it hit the ground, it discharged, killing the man instantly.
He’d heard the dog barking as he patrolled the shore, his truck window down despite the chill. When he pulled the body from the water, he saw that the blast had struck the man in the back of his head, and the impact distorted his features in a way Dolph still had nightmares about.
But even that hadn’t been as bad as a young man and woman eaten by hogs.
He’d studied the video from the night in the fall, looking for more clues about the animal. It wasn’t black, so it wasn’t a true wild boar, descended from the Eurasian ones released here long ago. It had a docked tail and blunt snout, which meant it was probably born on a farm and escaped. Based on comparisons against the size of the trap, it was easily nine feet long, if not larger, and probably weighed close to a thousand pounds. Most wild hogs topped out at two hundred.
His slow personal patrols came after many other attempts at trapping. He’d modified the drop doors so they were big enough to catch the leader, but had snared only a few stray domestic pigs that had gotten loose and not yet turned feral. The big one, and his herd, were now trap-shy.
Jack didn’t want to have the WHOMP team in the field through the winter, and Dolph didn’t blame him. It was a slim chance at best that he might find the herd, let alone the monster. Pigs didn’t hibernate, but they did hide in their dens, and if they heard the WHOMPers traipsing about, they certainly wouldn’t emerge.
Not that Jack wasn’t spending a lot of time in Needsville. He was certainly allowed to date whomever he wanted, but there were so many rumors about Tufa girls. They were attractive, yes, but also dangerous; more than one young man, the stories said, was led to his ruin by the love of one of those enigmatic dark-haired beauties. He seemed to recall a tune by R. C. Bailey from the earliest days of country music that mentioned the Tufa, but he couldn’t quite bring it to the front of his brain.
But Jack didn’t seem under any sort of duress, or spell. He still met Dolph for coffee on Wednesday at the Iron Kettle diner on Cane Valley Road, still laughed at the raunchy jokes the waitress shared with them, and seemed no different from before. Except, that is, for being happier. So Dolph reserved judgment.
At their last kaffeeklatsch, though, Jack had brought up another relationship, one that had him thinking. “So that Duncan Gowen has been keeping company with the sister of that boy who died, did you know that?”
“No. Why should I care? And why should you?”
“There’s something that’s not quite right about all this, Dolph. No one’s seen that pig since that night we saw it on the monitor. It’s like it vanished.”
“It could’ve died.”
“And that’s not the only thing. I mean, I don’t think the Gowen boy had anything to do with that girl being killed. His alibi checked out, he was nowhere around, and God knows he sure looked tore up about it that day. But he was right there when that boy died. And really, all we know for sure is that the pigs tore up the body. We’ve only got his word for them actually doing the killing. And we all heard that gunshot.”
“But he hadn’t fired his gun,” Dolph said. “I checked it myself. The dead boy must’ve tried to shoot the hog. Unless you think there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, old man. And I also hear that the dead girl and the dead boy were sneaking around together behind that Gowen boy’s back.”
“So what do we do?” Dolph said. “What’s the crime here?”
“Ah, I don’t know. We need some proof of something. And by now, the proof’s done been chewed up and shat out.”
“Well, I hope you’re wrong. For everybody’s sake. There’s a couple of families that have gone through enough.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “But I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open. If I’m right, there�
�s always the chance that he’ll slip up.”
But so far, at least according to what Jack had told Dolph, that hadn’t happened. And now all these thoughts went around and around the old man’s mind, in the embracing silence of the winter woods.
He got up and hiked to the top of a ridge, then leaned against a tree to rest. He kept his rifle in his hands, though, and slipped the shooting glove’s little cap off his trigger finger so it would be ready.
He’d learned this little valley almost as well as he knew his own backyard garden, but he also knew that despite the undergrowth’s winter die-off, animals could hide in the shadows of a bare branch if they had to. In places the ground cover still had thick tangles of many seasons’-worth of dead weeds, under and through which the pigs had made clear trails. He couldn’t possibly crawl into them, but at the same time, neither could that monster. But Dolph could use them to verify when the pigs were actually on the move.
And they were. In places, the snowy ground was churned by a multitude of small hooves. But where were they going, and where had they come from?
In a way, the pigs were like the Tufa: He knew they were there, but they came and went in their own mysterious ways.
He laughed out loud, breaking the cold silence. He’d have to be sure not to share that observation with Jack.
He finally caught his breath and began his descent, his rifle loose in his hands, his thumb over the safety, ready to take it off and raise the weapon in one well-practiced motion. But nothing moved.
Then he paused. What was that smell?
19
Junior Damo opened the door of his trailer. He squinted out at Duncan and Renny. It was nearly noon, but he looked like he’d just woken up. “What do you two want?”
“We’d like to talk to you,” Duncan said, and made the deferential hand sign acknowledging Junior’s position.
“We can come back,” Renny said quickly. She was nervous, and tightly gripped Duncan’s other hand. If Duncan hadn’t been so nervous himself, he would’ve been astounded that anything could rattle her like this.
A little boy of around two, wearing a winter coat and a diaper with no pants or shoes, tried to push past Junior and go outside. He nudged the boy back with his leg and said with surprising gentleness, “You just stay inside, Trey.” Then, loud and harsh, he said, “Loretta! Put some goddamn clothes on this kid!”
“We’ll come back,” Duncan said.
“No, fuck it, y’all come on in,” Junior said, and stepped aside. They entered.
The trailer was too small for a family of three, with baby items like a high chair, playpen, and various toys jammed into every available space. It smelled of stale garbage and cigarettes. By the time the door closed, the baby Trey was gone, and Junior indicated two empty chairs at the tiny table.
Duncan held one chair for Renny, then sat. “We’d like your blessing on our marriage,” Duncan said.
Junior looked at him dubiously. “That a fact. You’re Adam Procure’s sister, ain’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Renata.”
“And you want to marry him?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“You knocked up?”
Renny turned red. “Yes, sir, I am.”
Junior laughed, a mean little chuckle that would have done his predecessor Rockhouse proud. “Well, ain’t that something? You didn’t waste no time, did you, son?”
“It ain’t like that,” Duncan mumbled, but couldn’t look at Junior.
“No, I’m sure it ain’t. But you both want it, right?”
“Yes, sir,” they said deferentially, a beat apart.
“Well, then, go for it. No skin off me either way.”
Duncan and Renny looked at each other, then stood. “Thank you,” Renny said, and shook Junior’s hand.
“Tell you what,” Junior said. “Renata Procure, you wait outside. I want a word in private with loverboy here.”
She left, and when the door was shut behind her, Junior slapped Duncan on the back and said, “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
“I don’t know what you mean … sir,” Duncan said.
“Oh, come on. Her brother was shim-shallying around with your girl, then met with that little ‘accident.’ Now you done planted yourself in the belly of his sister. Boy, when you get back at somebody, you don’t fuck around.” He snorted. “Or I reckon you do fuck around.”
“That ain’t what happened. I didn’t do anything to Adam.”
“Course not. That pig ate him, I heard all about it. But somebody must’ve called ‘sooey,’ right?” He winked.
“Look, please, believe me. I didn’t do anything to Adam.”
“That ain’t what you said that night at the moonshine cave.”
“I was … My feelings were hurt.”
“Aw,” Junior said mockingly. “I bet I can get Trey to loan you his pacifier, if you want.”
Duncan clenched his fists. “And I was drunk.”
“Right. Well, you’re a grown-up, just like she is. Y’all got a song yet?”
“‘Could I Have This Dance.’”
Junior burst out laughing. “What, that fucking old Anne Murray song?”
“Yeah.” Duncan was growing tired of Junior’s snideness. “What’s wrong with it?”
Junior threw up his hands. “Hey, whatever floats your boat. Ain’t a jury in the world would convict you anyway. So go marry that girl, raise that baby, and”—his voice dropped—“pray to God she don’t put on fifty pounds and the worst attitude this side of a damn bull with his nuts caught in a barbed-wire fence.”
“I heard that, you bastard!” Loretta yelled from somewhere down the short hallway.
“You got clothes on that baby yet?” he yelled back.
“Fuck you!” she screamed.
Junior shook his head. “That, my friend, is fucking marriage.”
* * *
When he rejoined Renny in his car, she asked, “So what did he say?”
“Nothing.” He turned the key and put the car in reverse.
“No, seriously, what did he want to tell you?”
As he pulled onto the blacktop, he yelled “Nothing!” It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice at her.
She reached down and slammed the gear lever into park. The vehicle jerked to a halt in the middle of the road. Then she grabbed him by the face and snarled, “Yell at me like that again, Duncan Gowen, and you won’t be fathering any more children, you understand that?”
He slapped her hand away. “You ain’t the boss of me, Renny. I don’t have to tell you every damn thing that goes on in my life.”
Renny glared at him. Then her eyes grew wet and poured swollen, sudden tears down her face. She turned away and said with a shaking voice, “Don’t you think you made me cry, Duncan. This is just pregnancy hormones fucking with me.”
He sat still, the tension in his body so strong that he was afraid any move would snap him like a rubber band. He breathed in long and slow, while Renny sniffled and quietly sobbed. She looked out the passenger window, her breath steaming the glass.
“I’m sorry I grabbed you,” she said at last, in a small voice he’d never heard before. “I have a terrible temper. I need to learn to control it before…” She patted her stomach.
“Junior was making jokes,” Duncan said. His head had begun to pound, and he had no juice left for more fighting. “Stupid jokes about me and you and … how I was marrying Adam’s sister.”
“Jokes?”
“Jokes. He thought it was funny.”
“God, he’s the right man to follow Rockhouse, all right.”
“But he did still give us permission.”
She nodded, wiped her nose with the heel of her hand and said, “Hope I didn’t fuck up your transmission.”
“Me, too,” he said honestly. Gingerly he put the car into drive and pulled back onto the road. As he listened for any change in the engine’s noise, inwardly he sighed with relief. He hadn’t lied to her: he’d
picked his way through the minefield of the truth without blowing off a limb. Maybe it was possible that this would all work out.
As they drove, Renny reached over and took his hand. He could feel the warm snot on her palm.
* * *
Dolph moved even more slowly as he searched for the origin of the unmistakable smell. He tried not to visualize what he might find. The hillside was studded with large boulders, remnants of the ancient sedimentary rock that formed the mountains. Erosion from rain and snowmelts had exposed them, and now they were covered with brown, winter-dead moss, except for the tops, which were bare.
He didn’t recall ever seeing these rocks before, but he recognized that odor. Rotted meat.
It couldn’t be an animal’s carcass dead on the ground: it would be frozen, and thus wouldn’t smell. He’d come across the remains of a deer and a coyote already, and there was no odor from either.
Ahead, two car-sized boulders protruded from the ground. They leaned against each other and formed a triangular cavity between them that led back into the hillside. The snow and ground outside it was well worn and trampled flat, and even at this distance, he could tell it was from the passage of wild pigs.
He’d found a den. Was it the den?
The opening was big enough for the monster to use, and if it was in there right now, this might be the perfect chance to kill it. His heart pounded and everything grew clear and sharp as adrenaline coursed through him. His knees quit hurting, his back loosened up, and he felt as young and agile as a thirty-year-old.
He did not approach the entrance, but instead very quietly climbed the slope and crawled out to sit atop the rock, where he had a clear view straight down. There was no response from the cave; either they hadn’t smelled him, or they weren’t in there.
The rotting-flesh smell now mixed with the odor of manure. This was the source, all right. Once he was in position, his rifle ready, he took a deep breath and let out a loud, ululating hog call: “Sooooo-eeee! Soo-ee soo-ee soo-ee!” He hadn’t done that in a long time, and he was surprised his gravelly old voice would still go that high. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, too.