Chapter 5

“Okay, I need to make one thing clear—there is no way that we can guarantee to have completely cleaned all wild hogs from inside the fence. What I can guarantee is that we will kill all wild hogs that we can find, but, rest assured, it is unlikely that we will find them all. Now, this is what I propose to do.

“We will make a quick scan of the complex in our truck to try to spot any obvious hogs or places where they may be hiding. Of course, we will shoot any that we can find. The problem is that we will only be able to cover the outdoor part of the complex. The indoor part will have to be done on foot. At least, we will not have to go up stairs. Hogs don’t have the anatomy to be able to climb stairs, but they can negotiate ramps. Therefore, you will have to warn us about the locations of ramps that lead to upper levels. I don’t expect to find any hogs above ground level, even if there are ramps, but we will have to check.

“It will be a lot easier if someone familiar with all of the buildings and grounds goes with us. That way, areas that we might miss can be pointed out. I think that someone familiar with general maintenance of the complex would be the most useful. I’ll leave it to you to find somebody who fits that bill.

“Now, as to timing. This complex is so large that it will take several days to cover it all. You must tell us if there is some place that we should check first. Otherwise, we will just check places as we come to them. That may not be the most convenient pattern for your needs, so tell us before we start so that we can plan for that.

“Finally, as I see it, I think that it will take four days to cover the entire complex. Thursdays and Fridays are already committed, so we will have to work around those days. We will work on Sunday if we have to, but that will cost you extra. Are there any questions?”

“Can you work at night?”

“No, we will not work at night unless the area is so well lit that it seems like daytime. We are no more resistant to a hog’s attack than one of you, so you see that we will not be taking any foolish chances. We absolutely refuse to set ourselves up for an attack if we can avoid it.

“Oh, one other thing: we will be using shotguns with hogloads and .45 caliber pistols, so we need to know if there are areas where we cannot shoot for safety reasons. No, we are not prone to wild shooting, so you can expect very little damage from our shots, though there may be some. Some bright colored paint in an aerosol spray can would be helpful in marking places where a bullet may have hit something and punctured or broken it.

“Anything else? ... No? ... Okay, we will start as soon as the contract is signed. Mrs. Owens is our legal representative and Mrs. Higgins is our business manager. Somebody in authority should talk to them and arrange the contract while I survey the coming battlefield.”

The plant manager called to the head of finances to stick around while he dismissed everyone else. Meanwhile, I caught up with the head of maintenance. “Do you have somebody who can come with me and be a part of the team? If he can shoot, that would be a help, but it isn’t really necessary.”

“Yes, Mr. Higgins, I have somebody in mind. He is Jack Sterling. Jack knows this plant better than anyone else I can think of. I’ll find him for you. That should only take a few minutes. In the meantime, you can look out those windows over there and see almost all of our facilities.”

He was back with a man of about 40-50 who had a competent look about him. I thought to myself, “At last, somebody who can help with the solution and is not a part of the problem.” I said, “Jack, do you have some sort of transportation that we can use to ride in and out of buildings? That would speed things up considerably.”

“Sure thing, John. I have a golf cart that I use for general inspections. It should be just the thing. It has four seats, so there should be plenty of room.”

“That sounds good. Can you shoot a pistol with any accuracy?”

“Yes, I have a .45 caliber Glock that I carry with me ever since the damned hog problem came up. I’ve been expecting something like this to happen, so I always wear it at my waist. I have a couple of extra clips in my pocket.”

“Very good! That’s what I carry, so we can start our inspection right now.” We went to the garage area to pick up the golf cart, and I was happy to see that Jack did not let his alertness slack off just because we were inside a building. Jack drove, of course, and I rode beside him. I immediately changed my plan of attack.

I noticed that there were six large buildings that all had doors standing open. At least all of the smaller buildings had closed doors. I assumed that was because of the buildings being used for storage or else as air conditioned offices. Therefore, I was pretty sure that there were no hogs inside any of them, though we would have to check before the job was finished.

The first place we checked was the solvent recovery building. This was the most dangerous place for firing a gun. There were eight storage tanks for recovered solvents like alcohols or benzene. All of the solvents were highly flamable, so we would have to be especially careful in here. Just to be on the safe side, I was holding my pistol in my hand as Jack drove us into the depths of the storage area. There were a lot of metal drums in here containing freshly received solvents, and some of the drums were only marked with a number, so we could not tell what was in the drum just by looking.

We were almost through with our trip when I spotted some movement toward the rear of the storage area. I pointed it out to Jack, and he drove slowly toward that spot. Just as we got to the place where I had noticed the motion, a hog ran toward us. That was very unusual behavior, but I did not let it rattle me as I fired two quick shots into the hog’s body. It skidded to the floor, and I got a good look at a couple of long tusks; this was a boar. I guess that it was protecting its territory.

Jack was cussing a blue streak, but he shut up when I slapped his leg. He looked at me, and I pointed at a section that was clear of drums. “Jack, we better check on that section.” He immediately nodded and turned in that direction. Something black moved in the shadows. Dammit, it was probably a sow. I was in an awkward place where I didn’t want to shoot because the sow was almost surrounded by solvent drums, and a miss would cause some solvent to be dumped onto the floor.

Jack kept driving into the open area, and the sow moved. When she did, she opened herself up for a safe shot. I fired twice and we had another dead hog on our hands. Those hollowpoint bullets did a wonderful job of tearing up internal organs.

My gun roared like a cannon inside the sheet metal clad building. Thank God we had donned our hearing protection before we had entered the building. We had stopped by the truck to pick them up.

Jack made a quick pass through the building a second time to make sure that we had not missed anything before stopping the golf cart. He mounted a forklift and picked up the two dead hogs and dumped them just outside the door to the building. Jack returned the forklift to its parking place and joined me in the golf cart. He closed and sealed the door before heading to the next building.

Just as we were about to enter the building, Jo called me on my cellphone. “John? They signed one of the boiler plate contracts that Judy had with her. They are paying us $2,500 per day to kill as many hogs as we can find, with no guarantee that we will kill them all. The contract will run up to five days, with a minimum of $7,500 if we finish early. I signed for us. I hope you agree with that.”

“I sure do. You and Judy did a great job. Oh, do we get to keep the hogs we kill?

“Oh, sure, that is part of the boiler plate contract.”

“Great, because I have already killed two hogs. Meet me with our truck at the first solvent recovery building to pick up the two carcasses. We can dump them into the truck with a forklift.”

“That’s a great start. I’ll see you in about 15 minutes.”

True to her word, Jo showed up with the truck in under 15 minutes. Judy was with her. Jo said, “Judy wanted to see us at work, so I told her to come along. I hope that is okay with you.”