Chapter 3

The husband must have been watching us through a front window. He came rushing out as soon as the boar died and ran to the car. His wife was still crying hysterically, and who could blame her? The boar was practically leaning against the door on her side, so the man moved the car a little bit so that the woman could not see the hog.

He gathered her in his arms and let her cry until she got it out of her system. Meanwhile, the dance hall manager came out to see for himself what had happened. Just in case, I was still holding my pistol while I surveyed the area to be sure that this boar was the only wild hog in the vicinity. Satisfied, I holstered my pistol and climbed down from the truck bed.

The husband was still busy with his wife, so the manager talked to me. “Thanks for taking care of the emergency, sir. My name is Jed Watson, and I am the owner and manager of the Laughing Hog Dance Hall. Dammit, I may have to change the name after tonight.”

“I don’t know about that. Why don’t you take the hog’s head to a taxidermist and have it stuffed. You could hang it over the door like a magic charm.”

“Do you really think that would keep the wild hogs away?”

“Naw, it ain’t likely, but it might give your customers a laugh. Do you have a shotgun on hand to take care of hog attacks like this?”

“Yeah, but I keep it locked up so that nobody will be tempted to use it on a customer. You reacted so fast, I had no time to get it out. I wish my reflexes were that good. By the way, I owe you a lot. What is your name?”

“Oh, sorry, I was thinking about other things. My name is John Higgins, and the woman in the truck is my wife, Jo. Stuck out here like you are, and the way the wild hogs are spreading out, it looks to me like you need somebody to make regular calls to keep the hogs under control.”

“That’s a damned good idea. Are you interested in the job?”

Jo had joined us, and before I could say anything, she piped up with, “Sure he is. John is a professional killer of wild hogs. I am his business manager as well as assistant hog killer.” We laughed at her last comment.

I said, “How much are you willing to pay me to sweep your area once a week on Friday afternoons? Of course, any hogs I killed would belong to me. I sell the hogs as freshly killed at 20¢ per pound. For example, that there boar would weigh about 350 pounds, so he is for sale at $70, plus a $10 bounty fee. You could sell a lot of barbecue from that hog if you advertised that his head was the one over your door.”

“Dammit, you are right. That’s a great idea. I’ll pay you $80 for the carcass if you will use your truck to drag it around to my kitchen door.”

“Okay, we’ll do that. Now, about the service I mentioned. It seems to me that I will charge you $150 per sweep and whatever hogs I kill if I sweep your area every Friday. I will come back at your telephone call if you need me more than just on Fridays. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good to me. I’ll have my lawyer write up a contract, and you can sign it next Friday. What name should I put on the contract?

Jo said, “Not so fast there, Mr. Watson. Our lawyer will need to look at the contract, too, before the boss signs anything. We’ll pick up the contract next Friday and get it back to you on the following Friday. Meanwhile, we’ll sweep your place for wild hogs next Friday on the strength of a handshake. How is that? Oh, our company name is Higgins Hog Hunters.”

“Sounds fair to me, Mrs. Higgins. Y’all come back inside, and I’ll find the $80 I owe you for tonight’s work. Y’all still haven’t danced tonight.”

Jo smiled and said, “We’ll haul the hog to your kitchen door before we come in, but we’ll see you soon.”

It was such a short distance that I didn’t bother loading the boar into the truck. I just fastened the line from the winch to him and let Jo drive around to the back of the dance hall kitchen. She tooted the horn, and somebody came to the door. I disconnected the line from the hog and wound it back up. Jo drove us back to a regular parking place, parked, and we went inside.

Mr. Watson was waiting for us at the door with the $80 for the hog, plus the money for our entrance tickets and what we had paid for our supper. We thought that was right generous of him and told him so. He said, “Hell, y’all did wonders for my business tonight. Now I can advertise that my place has been swept of wild hogs, and it is the safest honky-tonk in the county. That should increase business among the men at Ft. Rucker. I’ll make a fortune off of this. Y’all have a free pass in the Laughing Hog Dance Hall any time y’all want.”

Hell, I was still hungry, so on that note, Jo and I had another sandwich and a beer. We also spent close to two hours dancing. We were really tired when we headed home. On the way, we talked. “Well you didn’t have any trouble coming up with a good business plan for us, Ms Business Manager; that’s a good title for you. I was amazed at the way you were able to fit yourself into our conversation tonight. You weren’t slow to talk at all. I thought that I would bust out laughing at our company name: Higgins Hog Hunters. That describes us exactly! Good for you.”

“Thanks, John. That means a lot to me coming from you.”

“You are welcome, and I mean it, too. We are going to have a busy Monday. We have to register our company name and probably pay a fee; we have to find a lawyer; and we need to print up some business cards for us. At least, we can use our home computer for printing the business cards. Oh, and another thing: we have to get you a driver’s license.”

“John, I don’t think that I could take the driver’s test.”

“Sure you can. It’s a multiple choice test, and you never have trouble with that sort of thing. I’ll tell them that you have a speech impediment, so they will cut you some slack. There is nothing in the law that says that a speech impediment can keep you from having a driver’s license. You are good at driving this truck, and it is what you will use to take the test. You’ll breeze through the whole thing, mark my words.”

“Okay, if you say so, but if I screw it up, I will cut you off from sex until that night!” I did a double-take and then laughed. I thought that Jo was beginning to shake her speech problem. The doctor had said that she might as the shock of the accident, the rehabilitation, and the loss of our parents wore off. I hoped that was coming true.

When we got home, we had a rousing sex session. Jo was an angel most of the time, but she was a tiger in bed. Whoopee!

Sunday was a “work day” for us, so we went hunting. We went north this time sort of toward Headland. This had all been farmland 40 years ago, but it was built up now into one housing development after another. However, all of the housing developments were close to the main highway so that commuting would be easy. We took a side road toward the river and were soon in the midst of a new-growth forest.

The road soon turned into a dirt track through the forest, and I was damned glad that I had kept that in mind when we bought this truck. Jo spotted some hogs shortly after we left the pavement, so we knew that we were in the right place. The problem here was that many of the trees were growing so close together that there was no room for the truck between them. That was going to call for a change in strategy, but not today.

The hogs were ignoring us, so I simply stopped on the dirt road. Any more traffic was very unlikely, so I was not worried about blocking the road. The hogs were on both sides of the road, so neither Jo nor I had to swap seats. We armed ourselves with our shotguns, put on our ear protection, and opened our windows.