The night was officially cold by the time Jack and Dolph gave up. It was after midnight, and their reconnaissance of Half Pea Hollow following the community meeting had been fruitless. No sign of the monster, or anything other than some deer and one sleepy emu.
Dolph breathed heavily as he shortened the leads on the dogs. Jack, concerned, said, “You seen a doctor about that wheezing?”
“Sure have,” Dolph said as he led the two dogs to the tailgate. “You know what he said? ‘You’re an old man. Things shrivel up.’”
Jack smiled as he unloaded his M220. “We’ve got to come up with a different approach.”
Dolph unsnapped their leashes, and the dogs jumped up onto the open tailgate and went obediently into their crates. “Not that many ways to hunt pigs. You either go after them, or find a way to bring them to you.”
“Which would you suggest?”
He chuckled. “Neither one has worked out too well so far.”
Jack secured his rifle behind the seat in the cab. “They’re down in that valley, I know it. With four of us, we ought to be able to root ’em out.”
“True enough.”
“And really, the one we’re looking for is as big as the bed of this damn truck. How does something like that hide so well?” But even as he asked, he knew the answer. Hogs were shy, and easily spooked. If they heard or smelled you before you saw them, they’d vanish, and you’d never even know you’d been close.
“We got it to the trap that first night with no trouble,” Dolph said. “I suppose we can try baiting it without a pen. Get it used to coming up to eat.”
Jack looked up. “Wonder if we could get an infrared camera on a drone to help us find it?”
“Whoo-ee, listen to you,” Dolph teased. “I guess they must’ve tripled your damn budget since my day.”
Jack laughed. “Well, that is a point. I don’t really have that extra thousand or so lying around in petty cash. I suppose we’ll just have to keep spending the only things we’ve got: time, expertise, and boot leather.”
Dolph closed the tailgate. “You know you can count on me, son. I still feel kind of responsible for this area.”
Jack looked around. “I still feel confused by it. I mean … how can they live like this in the modern world? No law enforcement, no civil authority, barely any schools. How has nobody noticed?”
Dolph leaned against the truck’s fender. “You want to know what I think?”
“You think we need a drink?”
“My God, you’re a mind reader.”
Jack laughed and got the hidden bottle of Jim Beam he kept under the floorboard mat, in a little recessed area he’d installed just for this purpose. Dolph opened the bottle, wiped the mouth with his sleeve and took a swallow. Then he said, “What do you think’ll happen if the Tufa decide we’re causing more trouble than we’re fixing?”
“I don’t know. They’ll stop talking to us?”
“Let me tell you a little story, son. Back around 1986 or so, during those glorious Reagan years, I got a call about some fellas out spotlighting deer over on the other side of Needsville. I drove out and, sure enough, caught ’em at it. They took off, and I followed ’em. We were on a stretch of road that was dead straight for a good two miles, and while I was looking right at ’em, they turned off onto a side road. Keep in mind I wasn’t a minute behind ’em, and I had my eyes on them the whole time.”
He took another drink before continuing. “When I got to the spot they turned, the road wasn’t there. There was nothing, just shoulder, and ditch, and field. Not a sign of them, no dust in the air, no headlights in the distance. Just nothing.”
“What did you do?”
“I drove up and down that stretch of road for half an hour. They hadn’t reached the curve ahead, which went the other direction anyway, and they sure hadn’t doubled back. They’d turned onto a road that just flat-out disappeared.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s not. That’s why I came back when the sun came up. What you reckon I found?”
Jack shrugged.
“A road, just as pretty as you please. Wide enough for two cars to pass. Led up into the hills, past a whole bunch of old houses. Finally found the truck I’d seen parked in front of one of ’em. Rousted ’em out of bed, made ’em show me their firearms, and walked around their property. But of course, I didn’t find any proof of anything.”
“Of course.”
“Now, I grant you, the first thing anybody would say is, ‘You must’ve just missed the turn in the dark.’ You’ve known me for a long time, Jack. You think that’s what happened?”
“No,” he said honestly.
“Then how would you explain it?”
“I can’t.”
“I can. The Tufa have their own ways here. They don’t bother nobody, and more importantly, they don’t tolerate nobody bothering them. As long as you remember that, you’ll get along with ’em fine.”
“So you never did catch them poachers?”
Jack chuckled. “Never had to. Stopped in at the Catamount Corner—this was back when Mr. and Mrs. Goins ran it, before that gay fella and his New York boyfriend took it over—and just let ’em know that this sort of hunting was bad for everybody. About two weeks later, I heard from a friend at the hospital in Unicorn that a Tufa fella had been brought in, one who lived in that house where I found the truck I was chasing. Seems a buck deer just crashed right through the front window and gored him in the nuts while he was sitting on the couch.”
“That’s poetic.”
“Ain’t it? So see? Things do get handled here. It’s just … different.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. You about ready to go home?”
“I’m so tired, I might fall into bed and miss.”
Jack thought about Bliss’s offer at the fire station, but like Dolph, he was beat. And he had to come back tomorrow. “All right. I’ll pick you up in the morning and we’ll see what we can find during the day.”
He drove the old man home, but kept thinking about the look in Bliss’s eyes.
* * *
Duncan was back at the roadhouse on Monday for the first of the two funerals. He doubted he could survive it, but he had no choice. He was both the grieving boyfriend of one victim, and the lamenting best friend of the other.
These weren’t funerals in the traditional sense, of course. They were memorial services, or wakes, since neither had any body to display. And except for the crumbling remains of an old chapel of ease that nobody in their right mind ever visited, there were no churches in Cloud County. Brownyn Chess was married to a Methodist minister, and he’d spoken at funeral services in the past. But Duncan doubted Junior Damo would ever ask him to speak for any of his people. And both Kera and Adam were his.
Adam’s service was first, and was held at the Pair-A-Dice. There was some talk of holding it at the old Shine Cave, but past attempts at similar events had not gone well. Now the roadhouse’s tables had been pushed to the wall, and a dozen rows of mismatched chairs set out. Only about two dozen people attended, every one of them family except Duncan and his brother, Poole. Junior Damo didn’t even put in an appearance, which was pretty much the way old Rockhouse Hicks would’ve behaved.
Renny arranged a display with Adam’s old banjo, baseball cap, and favorite cowboy boots, a sort of stand-in for the coffin. And she stood in her black dress, playing long mournful notes on her fiddle, sliding in and out of every sad song she knew. And she knew a lot.
At last Adam’s father, Porter, stood up and walked to the microphone. He spoke about his son in flat, nonspecific terms, and then his mother, Vandeline, played and sang an acoustic version of Adam’s favorite song, Nickelback’s “Photograph.”
Duncan fought down the memories of all the times he’d teased Adam about this song, and his liking for Nickelback in general. “They sound like every band from the early 2000s got put into a blender, and this is what came out,” he’d told him. But Adam’s fandom was unwavering.
Then Duncan was asked to speak, but he demurred. Let them think I’m overcome with grief, he thought. I’m sure as fuck overcome.
When the ordeal was finished, lunch began. It was a typical Southern add-a-dish affair, with far more food than any gathering this size could eat. The idea was to have enough leftovers to tide the grieving family over for a few days.
Each dish had been sung over as it was prepared, soaking up the music of grief and loss, until some swore they could taste those very emotions in the glazed ham and mashed potatoes. Duncan couldn’t taste anything; he had no appetite, and couldn’t imagine ever having one again.
He was the unmoving center of the room, staring into space as people pulled out tables and set them up all around him. He didn’t even look up when they sat directly behind him, bearing mountainous plates of food.
“Hey,” his brother, Poole, said. He still didn’t look up. “You want something?”
“Nothing they’ve got here.”
Poole patted him on the shoulder and went to get in line for the food.
Duncan recognized the voice of Adam’s mother, Vandeline, from somewhere close behind him, and tried not to listen, but he couldn’t help it once he realized she was talking about him.
“I remember when Adam and Duncan here were little boys,” she said. She tousled the back of Duncan’s hair. “They used to run up and down the creek, seeing who could cram the most crawdads into an old mason jar.”
She kept rubbing his hair, and every muscle in his body tightened. He knew people watched him, the grieving best friend, in the same way they watched NASCAR, and for the same secret reason: They hoped to see a crash, and blood, and horror.
“They’d sleep over at each other’s house on the weekends,” she continued. “I’d have to make them go to sleep, and even then, they’d stay up all night whispering.”
Her fingertips tickled the hair at the back of his neck. His jaw muscles almost spasmed as he clamped his teeth shut against any reaction.
“Some nights they’d stay up playing music together, especially when they got electric guitars. They’d get the most god-awful howling noises out of those things.”
Now she ran her fingertips along his ears. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, not wanting to see if anyone was watching. His entire field of vision was the painted cinder blocks of the walls across the room, where the layers almost, but not quite, hid the texture of the concrete.
“They were such good friends,” one of the other women with her said. “They didn’t even fight over Kera.”
“They surely were,” Vandeline agreed, finally taking her hand away. “They surely were.”
* * *
“This is turning into a snipe hunt, not a pig hunt,” Dolph said through a yawn as he climbed into Jack’s truck.
“Yeah,” Jack muttered. After less than four hours’ sleep, they’d gone as deep into Half Pea Hollow as they could, following tracks and looking for sign. They’d glimpsed some normal-sized wild pigs but found no evidence of their monster. The dogs had done no better.
“How ’bout the elk we saw?” Jack said, searching for a bright side. Elk had been reintroduced in 2000, but they were still rare. “When I was training, I had to help put collars on some of the bucks. Did you know that in rutting season, elk breed eight to twelve times a night?”
“That’s why you hardly ever see them,” Dolph said dryly. “They’re exhausted.” He buckled himself into Jack’s truck. “You know, maybe that big pig has moved on out of your jurisdiction.”
“I should be so lucky,” Jack said, starting the engine.
“There’s always the chance that Max’s shot did get through, and it just took a while for it to finally die.”
“It killed somebody else. Not bad for a zombie.”
“You and I both know how dumb some animals are. You can shoot ’em through the heart, and they’ll run a mile before they realize they should fall over. I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“I’m not. But I can’t operate on that idea, either.” The truck bounced as they went over a ditch, and the dogs in their crates barked their disapproval.
“So what’s your plan, then?” Dolph said.
“I’ll just keep my eyes and ears open, and keep checking for sign.”
Dolph gave him a sideways, knowing smile. “Does that include sign from a certain dark-eyed young lady? I think you’re already making plenty of headway with her.”
* * *
Ginny Vipperman sat on the edge of Janet’s bed, softly playing a slow, methodical version of “Dizzi Jig” on a hammered dulcimer. They were aware of the funerals, and of course had known both Kera and Adam, but they were from the other group, and so they knew they wouldn’t be welcome. Besides, Janet was obsessed with getting her story on their deaths just right, so she’d gone over and over it.
Ginny stopped and said, “You ever thought about redoing this like Constance Denby? With some low bass strings so it sounds like it’s got some balls?”
Janet took a drag off the joint they shared and passed it to her friend. This dope was known locally as Gitterman’s Gold, since it was harvested from some plants left to grow wild and unattended since Dwayne Gitterman’s death some years earlier. Only a handful of people knew where it was, and they made their money selling it down in Knoxville, or at truck stops along the interstate. Those in Needsville and Cloud County got the “Tufa discount.”
“I don’t need my dulcimer to have balls,” Janet said. “That’s what an autoharp’s for.”
She turned back and stared at her laptop screen, her nose wrinkled in thought until Ginny said, “You’re making that face again.”
“What face?”
“The one that either says, ‘I’m thinking real hard,’ or ‘I smell something real bad.’”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“What I need to call that giant hog in my story. I mean, ‘Hogzilla’ is taken.”
“‘Hog Kong’?”
“Too obvious.”
Ginny put the dulcimer aside, handed the joint back to Janet, and tapped the handle of one of the dulcimer hammers against her lips as she slowly exhaled smoke. “How about ‘the Baconator’?”
“No, that’s a sandwich.”
“‘Snuffles’?”
Janet turned and looked at her. “Seriously?”
“Fine, smart gal. You come up with something.”
Janet pondered for a moment. “‘Uberhog.’”
“Does it wear a cape and threaten a superhero?”
Janet giggled. “‘The Evil Dr. Porkchop.’”
Ginny snorted. “‘Truffles the Mighty.’”
Now they both laughed. There was a knock at the door, and Janet’s father called, “Y’all getting high in there?”
“You bet!” Janet answered. They giggled some more. Her dad always asked that when they made too much noise, but he had no idea how often he was right. Then again, they had no idea how often they failed to fool him. He’d just rather have them stoned in Janet’s bedroom than somewhere else.
“Does he really think you burn that much sage?” Ginny asked Janet after they heard his footsteps fade.
“I do burn a lot of sage,” Janet said. “That way he doesn’t notice the weed.”
“How about ‘Hogwild’?” Ginny suggested.
“Sounds like he should be judging a wet T-shirt contest.”
“‘Bighoof’?” When Janet looked blank, Ginny added, “You know, like Bigfoot?”
“Oh, I got it. But no.” Janet picked up her guitar and began to noodle on it. Ginny knew it always helped her friend think, so she lay back on the bed, put one arm behind her head, and drew long and hard on the joint. “Maybe,” Ginny said at last, “we should just give it a person’s name.”
“What, like ‘Steven’?” Janet said.
“Yeah. Maybe something from politics. Like ‘Trump,’ or ‘Hilary.’”
“‘Nixon’?” Janet suggested, and they both giggled again. Then she said, “How about a diminutive? You know, a cutesy name, something to make it seem less dangerous?”
“‘Porky’?”
“‘Muffin.’”
“‘Tiny.’”
“‘Li’l Bit.’”
“‘Bacon Bit.’”
“‘Hamdinger.’”
Ginny suddenly sat up and snapped her fingers. “‘Piggly-Wiggly’!”
“Perfect!” Janet cried, and quickly typed the words into her laptop. Her story for the Raven’s Caw was finished, and she added the old-fashioned “30” at the end.