Free The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder by Patricia Highsmith Page A

corner, as three or four strange men came out on the terrace and tramped down the steps. There was a great deal of talk below, noises of feet, breaking of bushes, and then the smell of all of them mounted the steps, the smell of tobacco, sweat, and the familiar smell of blood. The man’s blood. Ming was pleased, as he was pleased when he killed a bird and created this smell of blood under his own teeth. This was big prey. Ming, unnoticed by any of the others, stood up to his full height as the group passed with the corpse, and inhaled the aroma of his victory with a lifted nose.
    Then suddenly the house was empty. Everyone had gone, even Concha. Ming drank a little water from his bowl in the kitchen, then went to his mistress’s bed, curled against the slope of the pillows, and fell fast asleep. He was awakened by the rr-rr-r of an unfamiliar car. Then the front door opened, and he recognized the step of Elaine and then Concha. Ming stayed where he was. Elaine and Concha talked softly for a few minutes. Then Elaine came into the bedroom. The lamp was still on. Ming watched her slowly open the box on her dressing table, and into it she let fall the white necklace that made a little clatter. Then she closed the box. She began to unbutton her shirt, but before she had finished, she flung herself on the bed and stroked Ming’s head, lifted his left paw and pressed it gently so that the claws came forth.
    “Oh, Ming—Ming,” she said.
    Ming recognized the tones of love.

In the Dead of
Truffle Season

    S amson, a large white pig in the prime of life, lived on a rambling old farm in the Lot region, not far from the grand old town of Cahors. Among the fifteen or so other pigs on the farm was Samson’s mother Georgia (so named because of a song the farmer Emile had heard once on the television) but not Samson’s grandmother, who had been hauled away, kicking and squealing, about a year ago, and not Samson’s father, who lived many kilometers away and arrived on a pick-up car a few times a year for brief visits. There were also countless piglets, some from Samson’s mother, some not, through whom Samson disdainfully waded, if they were between him and a feed trough. Samson never bothered shoving even the adult pigs, in fact, because he was so big himself, he had merely to advance and his way was clear.
    His white coat, somewhat thin and bristly on his sides, grew fine and silky on the back of his neck. Emile often squeezed Samson’s neck with his rough fingers when boasting about Samson to another farmer, then he would kick Samson gently in his larded ribs. Usually Samson’s back and sides bore a grey crust of sun-dried mud, because he loved to roll in the mud of the unpaved farmyard court and in the thicker mud of the pig pen by the barn. Cool mud was pleasant in the southern summer, when the sun came boiling down for weeks on end, making the pig pen and the courtyard steam. Samson had seen two summers.
    The greatest season of the year for Samson was the dead of winter, when he came into his own as truffle-hunter. Emile and often his friend René, another farmer who sometimes took a pig, sometimes a dog with him, would stroll out with Samson on a rope lead of a Sunday morning, and walk for nearly two kilometers to where some oak trees grew in a small forest.
    “ Vas-y !” Emile would say as they entered the forest’s edge, speaking however in the dialect of the region.
    Samson, perhaps a bit fatigued or annoyed by the long promenade, would take his time, even if he did happen to smell truffles at once at the base of a tree. An old belt of Emile’s served as his collar, very little of its end hanging, so big was Samson’s neck, and Samson could easily tug Emile in any direction he chose.
    Emile would laugh in anticipation, and say something cheery to René, or to himself if he were alone, then pull from a pocket of his jacket the bottle of Armagnac he took along to keep the cold out.
    The main reason Samson took his