APOCALYPSE LAW Page 4

  “We can tell each other Mel-stories while we eat.”

  Nate gave Brian a fake dirty look. “You know, I hope he comes home someday so I can tell him how you’ve been talking about him while he was gone. And while you eat his food too.”

  Brian waved him off. “He won’t care.”

  Chapter 4

  “What is this about?” Brian asked. They were in the barn and Nate was fabricating a wood frame twelve inches square.

  Nate hammered the last nail in. It was ready for the hardware cloth. He had put a door on it with a simple latch to keep animals out and a roof cut from a sheet of tin roofing material to shed rain and snow. “I hope we don’t get a smart coon up here from the river swamp that learns how to open this.”

  “What is it for?” Brian looked Nate’s project over.

  “We’re going to put a few eggs in it at night. I will nail it to the wall outside the coop.”

  “Why? They will probably freeze.”

  “If they’re still here in the morning we will eat them for breakfast.” Nate grabbed wire cutters.

  “You’re baiting the egg thief so you can catch him? What are you going to do if you do catch him?”

  “No.” Nate shook his head. He was disappointed in Brian. “I’m giving him the eggs. Whoever it is has been living on rabbits. A person can die of starvation with a stomach full of rabbit meat in him. I found snares when I went to Mel’s. And a place where he skinned and gutted one. There’s not enough fat in rabbit meat. Especially in the winter. And this has been a bad one, even worse than last year.”

  “Yeah, I remember you told me you can’t live on rabbit alone.” Brian seemed puzzled, but he said nothing more.

  “Why don’t you paint up a sign? Make it black letters on white and large enough to see on a moonlit night.”

  “What? We shoot egg thieves?” Brian had a smirk on his face.

  “How about free eggs?” Nate could see he was joking. “Afterwards we’ll go hog hunting—for real this time. We need some fresh meat.”

  “And we can’t buy it in town,” Brian added.

  An hour later, they were both through with their projects.

  “It won’t be dry enough to paint the letters until tomorrow,” Brian said.

  “Good work.”

  “I just painted it white. The hard part is painting the words.”

  “Clean the brush?”

  “Yep.”

  Nate pointed to the paint on Brian’s hands. “Clean yourself up. Then we’ll eat and go hunting.”

  “The hog will smell the turpentine on my hands.”

  “That’s good thinking. The paint smell is on both of us. We’ll stay downwind. Hogs are not as hard to hunt as whitetails. Wash your hands good with dish detergent to get the turpentine off. It’s not good for you to have it on your skin anyway.”

  “There wasn’t any water-based paint.” Brian looked at his painted hands.

  “I know. I’ll pump the water for you. Wash your hands quick when we get out there. We will be in the open.”

  Brian looked up at his father, his easy smile gone. “No one’s been around since those two.”

  “You never can tell. But I don’t think there’s anyone around.”

  After lunch, they headed into the woods. Brian had his Marlin 30/30 and Nate the M14. He was wearing his load-bearing harness with six extra 20 round magazines. Both were wearing olive drab boonie hats and green coats. They were also carrying military surplus ALICE packs to bring the meat back to the farm in.

  Nate kept them in heavy cover and swung around to the river a mile downstream. Unlike their farm, the land along the river downstream was low and swampy. The river valley on both sides flooded there after heavy summer rain and was populated with wild hogs: the offspring of feral pigs escaped from other farms.

  They slowly worked their way around muddy spots, many rooted up by hogs looking for grubs and other things only a hog would eat. The swamp smell was not strong like in the heat of summer, but down in the river valley the humidity was higher. And under the shade of the canopy of treetops, it was colder. Finding nothing but tracks and rooted areas as large as a half acre, Nate decided to go back up on drier ground and into a large stand of oak trees. He whispered to Brian, “It’s too cold for them to be down here in the wet. They’re eating acorns and lying out in the sun.”

  Brian nodded.

  “We’ll come in quiet and get between them and their usual retreat route to safety. Go slow and stay back about five yards.” Nate followed a hog trail that had been cut up with fresh tracks.

  Just where swamp turned into upland and the trees turned from cypress and hickory to magnolias, Nate spotted a small pine that had been scarred by the tusks of a boar. There was a circle of torn ground where the boar had repeatedly slashed the tree, creating a doughnut of raw earth with the pine in the middle as he worked his way around the trunk. The marks on the pine and tracks in the dirt were fresh. A few minutes later they found trees smeared with wet mud and others with mud dried over several days where a hog had rubbed its sides, leaving mud high enough to reach Nate’s belt buckle.

  Nate motioned for Brian to come to him and pointed at a muddy tree. He whispered, “We don’t want that one. He’s a big boar. He’ll be tough and gamy.”

  “And he’s a mean SOB,” Brian added.

  Nate smiled slightly at his language and walked on.

  As they worked their way up on higher ground, Nate kept them downwind of the stand of oaks he wanted to hunt.

  Brian tapped him on the shoulder. He stopped.

  “I hear one up there to the left,” Brian said.

  Nate nodded, though he had heard nothing but the occasional rustling of brush in the slight breeze and their own footsteps in the mud earlier and now the crunch of dry leaves underfoot. “We will have to slow more to be quiet. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

  They were forced to go through a thick patch of saw palmetto before they could get to the oaks. Nate searched for a route through where they could penetrate it without making enough noise to alert every animal in the area. He found a place that looked somewhat easier to get through and slowly slipped between the chest-high, wide, green fronds. Two thirds of the way though, a boar grunted and a sow squealed.

  Two sows came running toward the patch of saw palmetto and turned to face some unknown danger in a small clearing just ten yards from Nate. One of the sows had piglets. They scurried under and around her, obviously as excited as the sows. A three-hundred-pound boar rushed into the clearing, its bristles straight up on its back, and turned to face something in the brush on the far side, popping its jaws, tusks slashing. Another hog was squealing as if it were in the jaws of death further back in the woods. The boar in the clearing was bleeding from both shoulders and one side of its head.

  A rumbling noise like that of a two-cycle engine on a chainsaw that had just been revved up and now was coasting down in revolutions per minute came from the direction the hogs were looking. Something large crashed through the brush, coming closer at a fast rate.

  Nate knew what it was and was sure Brian did too. He had intended to let Brian harvest the meat on this trip, mainly for training and target practice. Brian might be killing another kind of animal soon. Not for meat, but self-defense. But Brian was to his left and slightly behind. He was not in position to shoot because Nate was in the way, and there was no time for him to maneuver around him.

  Nate brought his rifle up and shouldered it in one motion. He fired once. The sow with no piglets rolled over, got up and tried to run, squealing its head off. Then its legs collapsed under it, and it fell on its belly and died.

  The other sow took off squealing. Its piglets ran in every direction squealing for all they were worth. The boar in the clearing stretched out its massive body, and in three long, jumping strides, disappeared into the brush on Nate’s right. Nate and Brian both tracked its rapid progress with their ears as it crashed like a bull through heavy saw palmettos. It swung
around behind them and headed for the river. The last they heard of it was splashing as it raced through a wet area down in the swamp.

  Nate turned to Brian and said, “Well, let’s get this one—”

  Another boar came bulldozing its way into the clearing and made for Nate at full speed, popping its mouth and slashing with four inch tusks, rumbling like a motorcycle, stiff back bristles standing straight up. It was half again as large as the boar that ran into the swamp.

  Brian thumbed back his rifle’s hammer, threw down on him and fired in one quick motion. He was off to the side a little and had to aim for the right shoulder. The massive boar’s front right quarter collapsed and the animal slid on dry leaves carpeting the ground. It struggled to right itself. Brian worked the lever, keeping the Marlin on his shoulder the way Nate had taught him, and shot into the animal’s brain, killing it instantly.

  Nate had the boar in his sights but never fired. He lowered the M14 and turned to Brian. “Damn good shooting, Son.”

  Brian looked across the clearing at the dead boar, his face stoic. “You’re the one who taught me and put the peep sight on with the big aperture for snap shooting in thick cover.”

  Nate appraised his son. Nodding, he said, “You’re coming along just fine, Brian. Just fine.” His chest rose and he let out a sigh. “We will be up most of the night butchering and hauling meat. That old boar’s going to be sausage. Otherwise it’ll be like chewing on these old boots I’m wearing.”

  “At least it will be plenty cold and the meat won’t spoil.”

  “Yeah. I was hoping for warmer weather, but now I hope it stays cold for a few days longer anyway.”

  “We can smoke some of the sow,” Brian said.

  “And can some of the boar. You can’t tell one meat from another once it’s been cooked to death for canning, and it tenderizes the toughest meat. I think we should leave a ham off that old boar for the egg thief too.”

  “We will have to hang it some way to keep the rats and other animals off it,” Brian said. “It sure won’t fit in that little wire box you made for the eggs.”

  “Yep, that’s true. Let’s get busy.”

  Before starting the messy job at hand, they stood by the massive boar, taking in its size.

  Brian pulled his five inch sheath knife. “You think the egg thief will want these mountain oysters?”

  Nate laughed. “Maybe. Unless you want them.”

  “No thanks.”

  Brian bent down and checked the long tusks. “He could have done some damage with those.” He looked up while testing the sharp edges with his index finger. “This has to be the biggest one you’ve ever seen. A wild one I mean.”

  “No. Your grandfather killed one larger back before I went into the Army. This one’s a close second.”

  Brian looked disappointed. “And I thought I might have impressed you by killing the biggest boar you ever saw.”

  “Oh, you impressed me all right: with your shooting.” Nate took his coat off and put it on the ground out of the way. “Lift his hind leg up and I’ll gut him.” He spoke as he rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  Nate slit him open quickly and pulled out the warm entrails.

  “Okay, let’s get the sow open and bled.”

  “I can do that one,” Brian said.

  “Next time. My arms are already soaked in this stinking blood. Notice how hog blood and guts stink a lot more than deer?”

  Brian nodded. “It’s a whole different smell, much worse.”

  “I’ll get it this time, we’re in a hurry.”

  When Nate had two of the legs partially skinned on the sow, he stood up and walked around to the back of the animal. “I’ll pull while you cut the hide loose in the tough spots.”

  Soon, they had it skinned back to the spine. Nate started quartering it. They put two of the quarters in plastic garbage bags.

  Nate picked up a quarter. “Bring my pack over and hold it open.”

  Brian held the pack while Nate slid the hindquarter in.

  “I think I can get this front quarter in too.” Nate rolled the sow over and had the front leg and quarter skinned, off, and in the pack in less than five minutes.

  “Dad, don’t lie, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  Nate laughed. “Once or twice. You were there the last few times.”

  “But you let me do more of the work.”

  “We’re pressed for time.” He began to skin the last hindquarter. “I’ll pull, you cut. Just like before. In about ten minutes we’ll be starting on the boar.”

  It was nearly dark by the time they had a front quarter from the sow in Brian’s pack and the boar skinned and quartered. They hung the spine and ribs of both sow and boar and the quarters of the boar from ropes tied to tree limbs.

  “That’s high enough only a bear could reach it,” Nate said. “Let’s get the last quarter from the sow hung.”

  “Bears and coyotes will be after the guts over there first anyway.” Brian wiped his hands on his pants.

  “Yep. That’s why we hung the meat over here. They’ll smell the guts first and eat that. We’re going to make one more trip tonight anyway.”

  “Won’t be able to get it all though,” Brian said. “That boar is humungous. And it’s not even really fat. It’s all muscle.”

  Nate stretched his aching back. “I’m thinking we’ll bring what we don’t get to the farm over to that large pine with the limb hanging out straight. The one that’s almost to our field. We can hang it there and it’ll be safe till morning.”

  “You think a bear will find it tonight?”

  “If there’s one within a mile of here, it will damn sure smell those guts. They have a nose on them. And he’ll eat it all, including the contents of the stomach and intestines.”

  “Oh shit!” Brian made a face like he was going to gag.

  “Get my canteen and pour water on my hands and arms so I can wash some of this sticky blood off before we start for home.”

  * * *

  “Dad, I’m beat.” Brian looked up at the pork hanging from rafters in their barn.

  “You should be,” Nate said. “We got it all done though, and it’s only midnight. Now we need to clean up and eat. I’ll let you sleep late while I get the rest of the boar in the morning.”

  “No. Wake me. You need my help.”

  Nate looked at his son—and said nothing.

  “What?”

  “You know if you hadn’t shot that big ass boar, we would have been done hours ago.” His face was unreadable.

  Brian was incredulous. “It was coming at you with those tusks!”

  Nate shrugged his shoulders. “I could have shot it if I was afraid. It was feinting.”

  “It fainted all right. After I shot it in the head.”

  “Feint. Not faint.”

  “What?”

  Nate swung at Brian’s stomach. When he flinched and jumped to the side, Nate jabbed, tapping him on the forehead with an open hand. “I just feinted punching you in the stomach. When you reacted, I took advantage of the opening you left me and punched you in the face, or I could have. That’s what feinting is.” He looked at Brian, his face unreadable again. “Funny how you thought I was going to hit you for no reason. How many times have I ever done that?”

  “Never. It was a reflex.”

  “That’s why it worked so well. Actually, it was different with the boar. He may have been pretending to charge to bluff us out of his territory. One the other hand, he might have been serious. They have been known to slash people up. And this one was already riled. He had been fighting with the smaller boar and had attacked another hog back in the brush.”

  “I told you he was a mean SOB. Like some people. And big as a house. I never saw one that big.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. You’re getting good at reading tracks.”

  “It was the tree he tore up, Dad.” Brian rolled his eyes.

  Nate laughed. “All right. Let’s clean up and eat.
>
  The next morning the ham they left hanging in front of the barn was gone. The eggs were untouched.

  Brian pointed. “Look. He dragged it into the woods over there.”

  “Yeah. It was too heavy for him to carry in one piece. I bet he took it a ways into the woods and then cut it up so he could carry the pieces, making more than one trip. Whoever it is is not very large. I could tell that by the tracks back when I found that rabbit snare.”

  “You think we should trail him?” Brian asked. “I mean so we can tell him we’ll give what food we can spare as long as he means us no harm.”

  Nate thought for a moment. “Maybe after we’ve gotten the rest of the meat back here. Remember, we’ve got to smoke some, can some, and turn some into sausage. Right now, I want to fry some with our eggs. I’m hungry.”

  “Can’t we freeze some?”

  Nate examined a footprint as he talked. “We have only so much kerosene for the fridge, and we should save it for the hot months. In someways, this winter’s unusual cold is a blessing. We’ve had enough ice to keep butter and milk in the icebox at least.”

  Twenty minutes later, Brian sat at the table and chewed his ham slowly. “You sure this was the sow and not the boar?”

  Nate chuckled. “It’s the sow. Something wrong?”

  “Gamy and tough.”

  “A little gamy, but I wouldn’t call it tough. Next time we’ll shoot a buck.”

  Brian stopped chewing. “This doesn’t seem so bad after all.”

  “You’re right,” Nate said. “It’s not bad at all. How about the eggs? You notice something different about them this morning?”

  Brian kept his face unreadable. “You cooked them.”

  “And?”

  “They’re not burned.” Brian swallowed, trying not to laugh.

  “And where did the ketchup come from?” Nate leaned into the table, holding his ear closer as if he were trying to hear.

  Brian rolled his eyes. “I’ll remember to thank Mel…if he comes back. And I hope he does.”

  “Nice of you to be so grateful when people do things for you.”