A Backwoods Encounter
Chapter 4
I awoke to find something like leather softly bumping my face. “Daddeh! Daddeh mummah say Moose wake ou up when sky baww come ova twees!” “Uuuggghhh…. Moose, just… Just gimme five more minutes.” No dice……. Negotiation is futile with my wife’s tiny enforcer. “Nuuuuuuu daddeh! Mummah say nu gib daddeh any mo’ sweepy times! Ou get up nao ow I’ww teww mummah ou swept in!” Ruthless little fucker….
This is my life now…… Moose is the green foal that my wife scooped up from the mother who had essentially abandoned him in favor of his sibling. She named him Moose and I have a fluffy living in my house. But, it’s not so bad. He listened and got house training down fairly quick, eager to please his new mother.
“Alright goddammit!” I groaned as I sat up and rubbed my face. “I’m up! I’m up. Go do your damn chore for the day.” “Wuh am today’s chowe daddeh?” He asked, following behind me as I got up and dressed. “Uuhm…… Shit what’s today…. Strawberries! I want 2 baskets before Mom gets home. Got it?”
The whole herd had just about fallen into a symbiosis with the way the farm ran. The other animals had more or less gotten used to them, except the horses that is. There were a few incidents when fluffies tried to “pway wif bigges’ fwuffies!” But the horses weren’t having it. Still ain’t. I think we were up to like 4 fluffies who’d tried to make friends with the Shire draft and got their head caved in for the trouble. The pigs had essentially become best fucking friends with the little vermin though.
Ironic in my opinion. They remind me a lot of each other. A couple of piglets playing with some fluffies just past the foal stage is pretty cute, I can’t lie. But this whole situation caused an issue in the end. Because, y’know, fluffies always find a way to get themselves fucking killed.
See, here in the south, we have a particular pest problem. One besides coyotes and considerably larger. Wild hogs can grow massive, destroy your land, absolutely fucking wreck a crop and I hate them almost as much as I hate fucking smarties. And today, a small herd of the ugly bastards decided to wander across my land in plain view of the fluffy herd. This herd had basically learned over the last couple of months that pigs equals friends. I guess they don’t know the difference between domesticated pigs and a wild boar. Rest assured they are VERY different.
I was in the barn taking a water and smoke break from farm work when I began to hear the grunting mixed with happy fluffy noises. I thought maybe the juvies were trying to play with the adult pigs again which didn’t go well the first time so I’ve been trying to discourage it. I poked my head out of the barn to see a few adult fluffies trotting up to 4 wild hogs, complete with 4 inch tusks except the big mother fucker whose tusks were probably closer to 5 or 6. That was one gnarly looking pig, man. What really caused me to panic a bit is as the dams were doing to great the “big haiwy piggies”, their foals and juvies were doing their best to keep up and say hello.
Don’t get me wrong, if their own stupidity gets them killed, fine. But I feel it’s fair to at least get them to adulthood before they get tragically greased by lethal levels of retardation.
“Hey! Get away from there!” I yelled at the 2 dams and their babies, but it seemed that they didn’t hear me or were blatantly ignoring me. I saw the big bastard start chomping his teeth rapidly and knew this was about to get very messy. Boars gnash their teeth in an aggressive display to sharpen their tusks. He was about to charge the dams.
“Sonuvabitch!” I muttered as I bolted for my truck. I kept an SKS behind the seat locked and loaded and snatched it out but just as I turned to get a line of fire, I heard that furious squealing. The boar let off its ear raping war cry and rushed the dams who immediately realized “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
The closest fluffy had about 2 seconds to get in touch with that regret before the pig bulldozed over her, throwing his head around and there was a definite red splash as he passed her. Those tusks did their job alright. The second dam scrambled back and managed to fumble fuck her way out of the path of the boar’s charge. Most of the young’uns weren’t so lucky. But with their small size, they didn’t suffer.
As the boar came around for his next charge at the remaining dam, she screeeed and yelled at the foals to run. Like 2 of them had the self-preservation to follow that instruction and the few remaining shit themselves and tried to hide behind their hooves. I squeezes off 3 shots and hit the pig at least twice. Thing is, a normal wild hog is tough. The monsters like this one are harder than a fucking coffin nail.
Wounded and pissed off the boar continued his rampage through the remaining dam, a couple of foals, and straight into the other hogs it was with. Now shit REALLY started devolving as the 4 beasts scattered and squealed and fluffies screeeeeed and yelled and cried.
I did my level best to put the bacon berserker down in a hurry but I’m ashamed to say it took another 4 shots. After it was all said and done; the other 3 hogs took off, the dams were smears on the pasture, most of the foals were unrecognizable, one foal had fucked off into the woods somewhere and one was now crying over its squished sibling.
I’m not one to waste good meat. I immediately went to field dress the hog and drag the carcass back to the barn to I could start processing it.
As I hoisted the hog up in the barn and began skinning it, I became vaguely aware of the sound of the foal crying. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it was wandering into the barn with me. No. No no no no…… Please no…
“Mistuh gwimm…… Mummah an’ sissy nu wake up…… Meany piggy give famiwy fowevew sweepies….” Stay strong man. You’re a stone. You are made of granite. I lit a smoke and continued working on the hog. “Yep…. That happened.” I focused on the cutting and pulling as best I could but the crying got higher and higher pitched until it devolved into the peeping and chirping of newborns.
When I finally looked back down, the foal was actually between my legs leaning against my boot and sucking its hoof. I stuck my knife into the meat and took a deep breath as I stepped away from the foal. It immediately began to panic as it felt my absence and looked around frantically. “Yo, right here! Calm down. What’s your name?” “Mummah caw babbeh fwowew……” “Flower? Okay…. Where’s your daddy?” “Daddeh am da big wed fwuffy”
Oh him…. The “big red fluffy” was a great worker. Hauled a lot of shit and never bitched. He also once stomped another fluffy to death for eating a strawberry he apparently wanted.
I looked down at Flower. “Go find him and tell him what happened then tell him to come see me, okay?”
I went back to skinning the hog while I waited for the red fluffy to arrive. When he finally walked in, he didn’t even say anything. He just made sure he was in my view and stood there waiting.
“What’s your name?” “Fwuffy name Wed, Mistuh Gwimm.” Shocker…. “Well, Red, your special friend was killed by this pig. That means Flower has no momma. You understand that right?”
Red seemed to think on that statement for a long minute. “Mistuh Gwimm an’ Nice Wady take cawe of babbeh?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Uhm…. No. YOU will take care of her. That’s what happens if you lose your special friend. Now YOU have to raise Flower.” The fluffy furrowed his brow and ground his teeth as he processed the information. “Buh… Mistuh Gwimm……. Wed nu am gud daddeh.” “I don’t wanna hear that bullshit. BE good. If you know you’re bad now then you know how to be better. So be better.” “Otay Mistuh Gwimm……”
With that, the fluffy exited the barn to where Flower was waiting for him and ushered her away. I think he’ll be alright. Or he’ll royally fuck it up. We’ll see what happens with that.