Chapter 3

The next day was more of the same as far as hogs went. I figured that I had enough rabbits with six to test the market. If Mr. Benson didn't want the rabbits, I would try to peddle them myself. Sam and I headed for another empty field where I expected to find some wild hogs. It was near the farm of my near neighbor, Jeb Hanson, and I had heard that he was troubled by wild hogs. I planned to drop by to see him about hunting on his property next week.

Sam was as eager as I was to find hogs, so he jumped off the driver's seat as soon as I told him to. This was at the near side of the field, and it was one that pa had not used in a couple of years. He had been letting it lie fallow in hopes of bringing it back to useful production. The last crop had been okra, and the yield had been so low that it was not worth harvesting. Thus, there were a lot of okra plants for hogs to munch on. They were pretty well dried up, but that did not seem to deter the hogs.

I hoped to pick up a boar or sow as our first prey. That was the safer order of battle, and it would give Sam a chance to run down pigs and piglets. Yep, it was only about 10 minutes after Sam jumped from the buckboard that I heard his bark of being chased. Based on the close shave from last time with the sow, I swapped out the buckshot in the left barrel for another modified shell. I didn't want to take a chance on Sam being hurt. He was too important to my hunting to let that happen. I had rather miss a shot than let Sam get hurt.

I had moved to the bed of the buckboard to stand to wait for Sam to deliver his first prize, and that gave me enough elevation to see the dog and his pursuer racing toward me. At that distance, I could not tell if the chaser was a sow or a boar. It really made no difference, but I suspected that it was a boar by the way Sam was running flat out.

Finally they were close enough for me to see that the pursuer was indeed a boar, but it was not as large as the previous ones, so it must be a fairly young one. No matter, a boar was a boar as far as killing and selling it was concerned, so I was ready for it when it got close enough for me to be sure of my shot.

Sam did his usual thing of making a sharp turn when he got close to me so that I would have a favorable shooting angle on the boar. I already had my shotgun at my shoulder and my finger on the trigger, so I was prepared when the boar swerved to follow Sam. There were a lot of bushes in the way, but I had to shoot to protect Sam, so I let go with the first shot.

The slug hit a heavy brush limb that I had not noticed, and it was diverted slightly from my initial aiming point. The result was that the slug plowed into the boar a bit farther toward the tail than I had planned. This was enough to tear the boar's belly open and spill its guts that got tangled around the boar's hind legs. Dammit, that was wasting a lot of saleable meat, and I was really pissed off. However, it was enough to knock the boar down after a couple of steps, and Sam was saved.

The fallen boar kicked and fought death for at least three minutes before it gave out. I hated for the animal to suffer like that, but I could not afford to waste another shot at it. Shotgun shells cost 3¢ each, and I could not afford that expense to salve my conscience. Sam did walk around the boar at a safe distance to satisfy himself that it was no longer a danger. When he trotted toward the buckboard, I knew that it was safe for me to hop to the ground, and I praised Sam for his skill.

Sam walked away after a couple of minutes of that, and I went to see what I needed to do to salvage the dead boar. I stuffed as much as I could of the boar's guts back into the body and used the windlass to pull it onto the buckboard's bed. I had so damned much blood on my hands by the time I finished the job that I had to use a clean croker sack to wipe them off. Shit! What a mess! Not only that, I was going to have a big job of cleaning the spilled blood out of the buckboard when I got home. At least, I hoped to get $15 for the boar from Mr. Benson.

After a short rest, Sam was ready to return to the hunt. He actually was ready before I finished with the first kill, but I held him back so that I would not have my attention divided when he came back with our next victim.

Sam was gone about 15 minutes this time, and I wondered what was keeping him. Well, he finally showed up, and he was being chased again. By the nature of the creatures, this had to be a sow, and she was a veritable monster. I swear that she must have weighed 300 pounds.

Again, I had two of the modified shells loaded in the shotgun, so I was as ready for the monster as I could be. She was so large that she did not run, she lumbered like a giant boulder inexorably moving toward its target. Sam had no trouble staying ahead of the sow, and he was making life even more frustrating for her by dodging back and forth so that she automatically changed directions as she tried to follow him.

Sam made his usual turn to his left and scooted out of the way. I was so impressed with the size of this sow that I was tempted to fire both barrels at the same time to make sure that I knocked her down. Fortunately, I was not so reckless, and fired only one load at her as soon as I had a good view of her side.

This time, there were no bushes in the way, and I saw the slug hit her. Even as large as she was, she was staggered by the impact of the slug. The sow took four more steps and crashed to the ground. That was followed by a skid of at least five feet before she came to a full stop.

Once she stopped moving, Sam trotted up to her and sniffed. That was when I knew for sure that the hog was dead. I jumped to the ground, and Sam came up for his usual reassurance of how proud and pleased I was with his performance. This lasted for the usual couple of minutes, and then he moved out of the way. He lay down, but I knew that he was alert, so I began to move the hog into the buckboard.

I had worked with the windlass for a minute or so and had to stop to rest. That hog was so damned heavy that I wondered if I would be able to get her onto the bed of the buckboard. While I was paused to catch my breath, I saw a man on a horse approaching me. I soon recognized him as the neighbor, Jeb Hanson, whom I had planned to visit before returning home.

He rode up and said, "Howdy, Jack. I heard the gunfire and figured that I had better check on it. I was afraid that somebody was in trouble what with all of the wild pigs in the neighborhood. I'm glad to see that you are alright and are shooting the hogs. If you get bored over here, please feel welcome to visit my place to do some shooting. These damned wild hogs are giving me a fit."

"Howdy, Jeb. Yeah, I am in the business of providing meat to Mr. Benson's butcher shop. He buys the hogs I shoot, and that lets me spend my time hunting instead of farming. I am sure as Hell a better hunter than I am a farmer. Thanks for the offer of letting me hunt on your property. I can swing through next week to take a few of those damned hogs you are complaining about. Where would be the best place for me to look?"

"I don't know the answer to that for sure. I see hogs every where I go. They are rooting out my crops so fast that I wonder if I will get much of a yield this year. Every one of the damned things that you shoot means more food on my family's table. I would be happy if you could clean them out for me, but I don't think that is possible. There's just too damned many of the blasted animals."

"Okay, I'll concentrate on the fields where you have seeds already in the ground. That should help you some."

"Yeah, it sure will. Say, that's one hell of a big sow. Do you need help getting it loaded?"

"I sure do! She's so damned big that she is overloading my windlass crank. Maybe it will be easier to turn the crank with both of us working on it at the same time. I'd take it right neighborly if you cranked with me."

Jeb and I still had a major job getting that monster sow up the ramp and into the buckboard. When I got home, I had to use the new horse to help me pull it up to bleed out. Tomorrow, I figure that I will have to use the full sized farm wagon and both horses to get all of the meat into town. I've got over 500 pounds just from today's kills. I have to stop here because this old horse is going to have a hard time hauling this load over the rough ground.

Jeb said that he had to leave because of a heavy work load, so I thanked him for his help and promised to kill as many of his wild hogs as I could manage. He left a little bit happier than when he showed up, and I was ready to start home. Our speed home was so slow that Sam got impatient and preferred to walk, rather than ride. This poor old horse deserved a long rest once we finally got home.

After lunch, I worked on getting the two new carcasses hung up on my crossbeam. Even the new younger horse had to labor to pull that latest sow up high enough for the blood to drain. Tomorrow, I wasn't going to fool around—I was going to drive the wagon under each carcass and lower it directly onto the wagon bed.

That evening, we talked about what Mary wanted to do for a garden. She said that she could manage one acre along with the other things she had to do, and that sounded reasonable to me. She had a list of the seed and other things she needed from town, and I promised to pick them up before returning home.

That night, sex with Mary was sort of low key, if that kind of experience could ever be called low key. She said that she had to tone down some of the fucking because her pussy was still sore from last night. I can't say that I liked it, but I did understand her problem and was sympathetic. Each of us came just once, and we went to sleep.

The next morning we were up before the sun and hurried through breakfast. The reason for the rush was that I had no idea how long it was going to take me to get all of the meat loaded. It was obvious that the new horse had been trained to work as a draft animal, but it was also obvious that he didn't like it. However, I did manage to show him who was boss. I didn't know his name, so I started calling him Dun because that was his color—sort of an off-brown. I also thought that he was kind of dumb, but I didn't want to call him that in case I later wanted to sell him. After all, who would buy a horse named "Dumb?"

Anyway, I finally got him to handle the empty wagon pretty well, and I was able to get him to move the wagon where it was needed. By the time all of the meat was loaded into the wagon, the load was just short of 800 pounds, by my estimate. I threw a tarp over the load to keep as much of the road dust off it as possible and headed toward town with Mary's list in my pocket.

Half an hour later, I pulled up behind Mr. Benson's shop and went in the back door to let him know that I had arrived. He had a couple of customers, so I had to wait, but I didn't mind based on what I guessed would be my income from this load.

When he could, he hung a "closed for 30 minutes" sign on his door and went out back to see what I had. He was glad to get the six rabbits and offered me 25¢ each for them. After a little haggling, I got 27¢. I knew that he was going to sell them, as is, for 50¢. I figured that I had gotten a fair price, so I settled for the $1.62. He said that he would take as many rabbits as I could bring in at that price. I agreed to that, but I knew that I was going to be concentrating on wild hogs, and any rabbits would be a side issue.

At last, we got down to the important stuff. He was impressed by the three adult hogs that I had, and he weighed them. The total weight for the adults was 736 pounds. The total weight for the pigs was 87 pounds. I was a little miffed at that, but I couldn't argue with the scale.

I walked away with $60.97, a veritable fortune for somebody like me. Mr. Benson reassured me that he would take every pound of pig and hog that I could deliver to him. He had contracted for a cold room to store the meat, so he figured to be able to take every pound that I brought in. I liked the sound of that! He said that the cold room would be ready for use before the really hot weather started, and he expected that he would not lose any meat over the summer, in contrast to what he usually ran into.

My next stop was at the feed and seed store where I picked up what Mary wanted. The bill there was almost $6, so I hoped that she could find a good use for what she wanted. She was going in heavy for potatoes, green beans, and carrots. Other stuff was radishes, lettuce, and onions. Man, my mouth watered just thinking about that. With the other things she wanted and the feed I bought for the cow and the horses, I had a hefty load to haul home.

It was just after normal lunch time when I got home, but Mary fixed me a good meal to hold me until supper. The featured item on the menu was some of her delicious rabbit stew, and I ate a double helping of that. I could afford to do that with the amount of money I was bringing home from selling meat to Mr. Benson.

That afternoon, I took care of some of the chores around the yard and barn that I had neglected in favor of hunting. I didn't want to let them get too far ahead of me. It was late afternoon before I was caught up, and I enjoyed sitting on the veranda in the shade and feeling the late afternoon breeze. Mary joined me, and we talked about what we might do with all of the money that I was earning. One thing she needed was a sewing machine, and she had seen exactly the one she wanted in the Sears catalog. I promised to get it for her as soon as we had enough money.

That evening, we skipped the sex and just went to bed. Mary said that she was still sore and wanted a break. Naturally, I went along. She said that she and pa had made love about three times a week, and she was saving Saturday for the big night. We could work out the other times to fit our needs.

The next day, I was up early to get the garden plowed before it got hot. That would make it easier on me and on the horse. I was going to use the older horse, Sarah, because she was used to me and plowing. I figured that I would have to train Dun to plowing. I put in the garden close to the house and well so that Mary would have an easier time with it. It only took me about two hours to plow the garden, so I had the rest of the day to laze away.

Instead, I worked on the windlass to get more mechanical advantage when winding it up. I had a couple of gears salvaged from a broken down windmill, and I managed to mount them so that I had close to a 5:1 mechanical advantage when I cranked that modified windlass. That was going to make life as a hunter a lot more enjoyable.

Thank goodness, I finished in time for supper because this was Saturday. It was bath time almost before I knew it, and this whole evening was a repeat of what we had done, including me licking and such on Mary's pussy. Man, let me tell you that I was beat by the time I finally got to sleep, but I loved every minute of the sex play.