Free The Boar by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

Wilson clanging pots and pans and bustling about, or yelling the little ones out of trouble. Not today. Jesse had been like one of the family and no one was feeling particularly lively.
    Mr. Wilson had already gone off to do field work, but Mrs. Wilson was at the stove cooking lunch, working in a quiet way, not banging pan a’one.
    When we came in she smiled and asked if I was staying to dinner. Since that cornbread and syrup had already burned itself out, I told her I reckoned I would.
    I didn’t tell her about the boar and what he’d done, or about Mama being at Doc Travis’s.
    “You heard about Jesse?” she said.
    “Yes ma’am. I’m real sorry.”
    I thought for a minute she was going to cry, but she turned back to her cooking. “We gonna be eating real soon,” she said.
    “Grandpa still in bed?” Abraham asked.
    “No, he’s out at that grave your papa dug for Jesse.”
    We went out back, behind the barn, and there was Uncle Pharaoh leaning on his crutches looking at the fresh-dug ground.
    “Grandpa,” Abraham said.
    He lifted his head and looked at us. I never thought that Uncle Pharaoh could look any older, but I had been wrong. He looked on the dark side of two hundred that day, like a ragged scarecrow propped up on two sticks.
    “Silly to be upset over an old pig,” Uncle Pharaoh said. “Bucky getting out here digging a grave a’fore daylight for an old pig, and him having to go to work too. Ain’t no sense in it, now is there?”
    Neither of us knew what to say.
    “No sense in it,” Uncle Pharaoh repeated.
    “You can train another one,” I finally said.
    The look Uncle Pharaoh gave me gave light to those old filmed-over eyes. “Ain’t no hog like Pig Jesse, you hear?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “He was special. Smarter than people. Better than most, especially some white folks I know.”
    “He didn’t mean nothing by it,” Abraham said. “He’s just trying to cheer you up some.”
    “Well, you ain’t so good at it, little white boy.”
    “No sir, I guess I ain’t.”
    “Old Satan come to his house last night too,” Abraham said. Uncle Pharaoh turned to look at me. “Tore his dogs up, and caused his mama to have to be hauled in to the doctor. She got such a strain she might lose the baby.”
    “You the little white boy that’s Abraham’s friend?” Uncle Pharaoh said suddenly.
    “Yes sir, I’m still the white boy that’s his friend.”
    “I know’d that,” Uncle Pharaoh said, as if he hadn’t asked the question.
    “What we want,” Abraham said, “is… is to know how to kill that hog.”
    Uncle Pharaoh moved his crutches around so he was facing us head on. “How’s that?”
    “We going to kill Old Satan, Grandpa. Me and Ricky, with or without your help, and ain’t nobody going to stop us. But we know you know more about hunting than a coon dog, so we want to know how to hunt Old Satan.”
    “Ya’ll go fishing,” Uncle Pharaoh said.
    “No sir,” Abraham said, “and I don’t mean to sound like I’m sassing. But we’re going after that Old Satan on account of what he’s done.”
    “Didn’t do nothing but kill an old pig,” Uncle Pharaoh said quickly.
    “Ain’t no stopping us. If you tell us how or you don’t, we’re going to get him.”
    Uncle Pharaoh stared at me until I thought my eyes would melt. “That the way it is with you, little white boy?”
    “Yes sir, it is. I reckon I’m going to go after Old Satan if Abraham does or not.”
    “I’m going all right,” Abraham said quickly. “I don’t care if Mama and Papa give me a whupping with a willow limb.”
    “Old Satan, he ain’t like no regular wild pig,” Uncle Pharaoh said.
    “We know that, Uncle Pharaoh,” I said. “That’s why we’re talking to you.”
    “Gonna need some dogs to do this right,” Uncle Pharaoh said.
    “We got a pen full of them,” Abraham said.
    “Those ain’t no experienced hog-hunting dogs.”
    “They’re all we got,” Abraham said. “And besides, there