Free The Last Road Home by Danny Johnson Page A

the wooden trough. I rubbed the pecan-sized knot on Bumpy’s head. She’d always followed me around when I needed to get in the pen, sticking her nose under my legs, curious. “You’ve been a good girl. I’m going to miss you.” She looked up from the trough. If a pig could smile, she was doing it.
    At sunup the next morning a crusty layer of heavy frost covered the ground. I dragged the scalding-vat from the barn, filled it with water, and set about building a fire underneath it. By the time Mr. Wilson, Roy, Clemmy, and Fancy got there, steam rolled off the water.
    I watched Fancy head toward the house to help Grandma, and noticed how her and Clemmy had the same gait when they walked. I thought about the touch of her mouth and my cheeks burned.
    â€œMr. Wilson, I never done this by myself.” The three of us stood close together, stomping our feet, blowing clouds of smoke, and warming our hands from the heat off the boiling water.
    â€œNothing to worry about.” He got busy hanging a pulley over the mule lot gate. I paid attention to everything he did. “First is to keep the water as hot as can be, so keep loading wood underneath when it gets low. Then we pick us a pig. You want to do the shooting since these are your hogs?”
    I figured it wouldn’t be very manly if I didn’t. “I’ll do it.”
    Bumpy was standing by the fence watching, her snout twitching. Roy went in and she gave him a friendly sniff, but when he grabbed her by the hind legs, Bumpy started squealing. I laid the barrel of the twenty-two between her eyes, and she stared straight at me, like she was pleading. I squeezed the trigger. She made one grunt and hit the ground. I felt sick. Roy slashed her neck to bleed her out.
    Mr. Wilson gripped my shoulder. “You all right, Junebug? You seem a mite weak-eyed.” Him and Roy had a good laugh.
    Once we slid Bumpy into the vat, each of us took a sharp-edged tin-can lid and scraped off the rough black hair. After that we hooked her to the pulley and hung her upside down. Roy cut open her belly and raked the guts into a washtub. I carried them to the house, where the women would clean them and make sausage casings and chitlins.
    The other pig smelled the rusty iron stink of blood and went running to take cover at the back of the lot. Mr. Wilson laughed. “Rest easy, pig, we’ll be along for you in a minute.”
    Roy and Mr. Wilson showed me how to butcher the meat proper so nothing was wasted from the “snoot to the poot,” as Mr. Wilson said. Within a couple of hours, the only thing left to recognize Bumpy was her head, then damned if Roy didn’t cut off her jowls, saying they’d be good for seasoning a pot of greens.
    When Roy went after the other pig, she took off around the fifty-foot-long pen, down to the muddy wallow and back again. “Get her, Roy, get her.” Mr. Wilson laughed and hollered encouragement. Finally Roy tackled the pig and I managed to shoot without killing him. They showed me how to salt and store hams, shoulders, and bacon in the smokehouse. It took most of the day to finish.
    I stunk of blood, mud, and pig shit. The shower water wouldn’t get hot, so I lathered my face, arms, and hands with lye soap while I shivered, scrubbing hard to get off the stink. I took the washcloth and dug inside my ears, trying to drown out Bumpy. Grandma had laid out some fresh clothes on my bed.
    She was busy at the stove cooking parts of Bumpy for supper. “Everything go right today?”
    All I could picture was Bumpy’s eyes. “Know I ain’t going to get too friendly with the next pigs; reckon it was sort of like you and Big Red.” I sat at the kitchen table playing with an old penny I’d found, spinning it by holding the top and thumping with my finger. Whenever my mind got sad like it had today watching Bumpy, I thought about Momma, and wished I could hold her hand. I could hear her