Gather Her Round

by Alex Bledsoe

  “You wouldn’t tell me if you were, would you?”

  “Jack, please—”

  “And who’s going to prepare a coroner’s report, and a cause of death, and—?”

  “That’s all on me. I’m the coroner for Cloud County.”

  He looked at her dubiously. “Really?”

  “Really. Unofficially, of course. But it’s never been an issue before. And it won’t be now.”

  “Then why didn’t you people just handle the hog yourselves? Why involve me?”

  “Because I knew from Bronwyn Chess that you were in a better position to do it than anyone here.”

  He shook his head. “Not so you could tell it from last night and this morning. You know, eventually somebody official is liable to notice all this.”

  “Somebody official like you?”

  “My job’s just to catch and kill that pig before he hurts somebody else. And make sure all the wildlife laws are followed. I don’t mean me. But I have superiors, and so does your Trooper Darwin. All the dotted i’s and crossed t’s in the world won’t help if the story they’re telling draws the wrong sort of attention.”

  “So you won’t be making any phone calls, maybe leaving any anonymous tips?…”

  There was an edge to her questions that Jack finally noticed. He put down the coffee cup and looked at her steadily. “A paranoid man could hear a threat in that line of questioning.”

  “A paranoid man hears a threat in everything.”

  “But like they say, just ’cause you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

  “You think I’m out to get you?” she said, and leaned close. “If I am, I promise you, it has nothing to do with work.”

  He laughed. It was the first time he remembered doing that without irony in what felt like days. “Look, Bliss, like I said, I have my job to do, and that’s all. I don’t want to alienate people around here, because if I do, they won’t help me. There’s an animal out there that’s killed two people, and it’s my job to both stop it before it does any more damage, and make sure nobody else gets hurt going after it. I have no interest in causing trouble for your folks.”

  “I believe you. And I’ll try to help. It’ll be hard to keep more people from going after it, though. We’re a pretty do-it-yourself bunch.”

  “That’s just how that boy Adam died: trying to do it himself.” He thought this over. “Is there a town hall in Needsville?”

  “It’s in the back of the post office building. Why?”

  “That’s not big enough. I want to have a community meeting to talk about the situation, answer questions, and explain what I’m doing. The sooner, the better.”

  “There’s the Pair-A-Dice. It’s an old roadhouse. It’s as close to a community center as we’ve got.”

  “That’ll do, as long as we can shut off the beer taps for an hour.”

  “You ask so much,” she deadpanned.

  “Who’s the mayor now? I’ll talk to him—”

  “I’ll get it set up,” she interjected. “When do you want to do it?”

  “This evening. Tonight. Late enough so the people at work can come.”

  “I’ll get the word out.”

  “Where is the Pair-A-Dice?”

  “Out on the old highway toward Randy’s Gap.”

  He frowned. “Really? I’ve driven that a bunch of times, and never seen it.”

  “Well, it’s there. I’ll give you directions. And I’ll get the word out.”

  He heard a fresh wail from Kera’s mother outside, and suddenly all the weariness of the morning caught up with him. He pulled out a chair and sat down. “All right. We’ll have to go back up and try to find the hog again this afternoon, although it’s probably pointless. Is there anyplace in town I can clean up before tonight, so I don’t have to go all the way back home? I need to check for ticks, too.”

  “The fire station’s got a shower,” Bliss said.

  “Thanks.” He drank some coffee. “Some days are just harder than others, you know that?”

  “I do,” she said.

  13

  Duncan had no idea why he was here, but Bliss had insisted. She said it was important to everyone, and he was too numb to argue with her. But as he looked around at the packed room, he realized he didn’t belong. They were all going to be told to leave the hog hunting to the professionals; for him, that was closing the barn door after the horse has come home.

  The Pair-A-Dice roadhouse, an old concrete building that sported a bar, stage, dance floor, and minimal kitchen, was the one neutral spot in Cloud County where the Tufa from both sides could hang out in nominal civility. Here their music could blend and their harmonies soar, despite their otherwise mutual antagonism. There were rare breaches of the peace—Dwayne Gitterman had stabbed Kell Hyatt a few years ago, for example, and little Mandalay Harris had pulled a gun on Bo-Kate Wisby—but for the most part, everyone got along. The stage was wide open to anyone who wanted to play, and if you chose to take that stage, you’d better bring your A-game.

  Now that stage was empty except for the game warden he’d seen up on Dunwoody Mountain, a portable movie screen borrowed from the high school, and a projector on a table. The warden fiddled with his laptop, and a blue square of light appeared on the screen.

  If he starts showing us a presentation about hog farming, Duncan thought, I’m out of here.

  Jack Cates said loudly, “Can everyone hear me okay? Bliss, do you think I can get a microphone?”

  Duncan sipped his beer. The bar was closed, but Bliss had brought him one anyway. No one disputed her medical opinion.

  Duncan’s day had only gotten worse. He’d had the awful experience of seeing Kera’s mother wrenched with new agony. He never wanted to hurt Brenda deliberately, and he felt awful that he’d done so inadvertently … well, sort of inadvertently. He knew she was mainly crying for her daughter, but everyone had known Adam, and some of that grief had to be for his parents.

  Yeah, and how well did she know Adam? that awful voice in his head asked snidely. Did she know her daughter was fucking around with him behind your back? Is that why she’s bawling like a toddler?

  Then his own parents, and his big brother, Poole, had shown up. His mom had gone into hyper mode, wanting to tend to his imaginary injuries, bring him a fresh change of clothes, and even bathe him herself. Poole was both annoyed that his little brother was getting so much attention, and genuinely sympathetic at the loss of yet another friend to the monster. Duncan remembered he and Adam tagging along after Poole when they were all much younger, and far more innocent.

  And then came the worst thing his mother could have said. “I’d heard Kera was also seeing Adam. I was proud of you two boys for not letting it come between you. A girl has the right to see anyone she wants, anytime she wants, as long as she’s not breaking her word, and you two took it like grown Tufa men. I just wish you hadn’t gone out there together to try to avenge her.”

  So his mother knew. And never said anything. And thought he knew, and that he was okay with it.

  Fucking hell.

  The wildlife man, Jack Cates, had questioned him for an hour, politely but insistently getting detail after detail from him. For his part, Duncan told the truth, except that he left out the bit about raising his rifle, and having a chance to save Adam. There was no sign Cates suspected anything, but it still made Duncan nervous. But fuck, what was there to suspect? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  And that, he knew full well, was the problem. He hadn’t done anything. He’d just watched the pig slaughter his rival, and done nothing.

  He got a sudden rush of both horror and fury. Goddammit, this was something else Adam and Kera had in common: Both were killed by the same wild hog. And Duncan was left out completely. They’d be cemented together in the common memory now, and before long, someone would write a song about them. A song, Duncan suspected, that would paint the two of them as tragic lovers, and Duncan as merely the hapless witness.


  Is that why I’m here? Duncan thought. To witness the start of this new legend?

  * * *

  Janet Harper knew exactly why she was there. She settled into her chair, checked the recording app on her phone, and picked up her reporter’s spiral notebook, the kind that flipped open like a Star Trek communicator.

  “Why do you need both of those?” Ginny asked.

  “I take the notes on stuff I think is important right now,” Janet said. “The recording is to CMA.”

  “CMA?”

  “Cover my ass. Make sure I get the quotes right.”

  “You write for a high school newspaper, Janet.”

  She indicated a dark-haired man with an identical notebook leaning against the wall. “See that guy? He’s a real reporter, from the Weekly Horn. He’s got one of these, too.”

  “So what does that mean? Are you role-playing?”

  “It means that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, Ginny. Just because I’m writing for a school paper doesn’t give me an excuse to do the wrong thing.”

  Ginny waved a hand dismissively. She looked around the room; she knew everyone, some better than others, but it reminded her again how small and tightly knit the Tufa community was.

  She touched Janet’s arm. “Look. There’s Duncan Gowen. I can’t believe he’s here.”

  “Where do you think he would be? This is all about what’s happened to him.”

  “I thought it was about what happened to Kera and Adam.”

  “Kera and Adam are gone. He lost his girlfriend, and then saw his best friend killed. He’s the center of attention now. Shit, I’ve got to talk to him, too.” She scribbled a note on the pad.

  “Not now,” Ginny said, a hand on Janet’s arm.

  “No, not now. But maybe I can catch him when this is over, get his reactions to the game warden’s comments.”

  Ginny looked again, more closely. She could only partially see his face, but Duncan appeared suitably sad and morose, and his body language—slumped in his chair, one hand dangling limp, his feet splayed out as if to keep him from sliding to the floor—only reinforced that. “I dunno, Jan. I don’t think he’s up to it tonight.”

  Before Janet could respond, the lights overhead went out, leaving only the ones over the stage. She snapped a quick photo of the game warden, catching him in profile with his visage set in grim determination.

  Oh, that’s good, she thought. She quickly wrote in her notebook, His visage set in grim determination.

  * * *

  Jack tapped the microphone to check if it was on. After the echoing thump faded, he said, “Thank y’all for coming out tonight. I’ll make this as brief as I can, so we have plenty of time for questions. I’m Jack Cates, from the state wildlife agency. You may know me from other presentations such as, ‘Can I See Your Fishing License?’ or ‘It’s Not Deer Season Yet.’”

  There were a few laughs, but not many. He wasn’t sure if it was because the jokes were old, or that he’d read the crowd wrong.

  “As many of you know,” Cates continued, “we had a fatal encounter with a wild hog two days ago. A local girl was killed. Well, today we had another one, and this time a young man lost his life. We’re almost certain it involves the same animal. And it’s my job to make sure no one else dies.”

  Murmurs went through the crowd. Everyone knew about Kera, but the word hadn’t finished spreading about Adam.

  “Here’s the culprit,” he said, and pushed a button on the remote in his hand. The screen came to life with an image of a giant hog, with long yellowed tusks, standing in the midst of some greenery. There was nothing in the picture to give it explicit scale, but it definitely looked big, and mean.

  “This isn’t the actual hog we’re after,” Cates continued, “but it’s a good representation.” He then gave a quick rundown of the history of feral hogs, and their increasing presence in Tennessee. When he finished, he said, “How many of you have heard of Hogzilla?”

  A few hands went up.

  He clicked through to another picture, of a huge mud-covered hog hanging by its hind legs over a gravelike hole. A man in a white T-shirt stood beside it, providing scale. “This animal was killed in Georgia in 2004. It was eight feet long and weighed at least eight hundred pounds. And since then, even larger wild pigs have been killed. The one roaming your forests is, I think, a good two hundred pounds heavier than this one.”

  The murmurs grew louder, and people began discussing it among themselves. Someone reached up and patted Duncan on the shoulder, as if reassuring him that no one faulted him for not slaughtering such a behemoth. He didn’t look back to see who it was.

  “We got this image of it last night,” Cates continued. “It’s not the clearest, but I think it gives you a sense of how dangerous it is.”

  Now the screen showed a capture from the night-vision video. There was the monster, broadside, with both the corral and the other pigs for scale. The air pressure in the room dropped as almost everyone gasped at once.

  “I know what a lot of you are thinking right now,” Cates said. “You’ve got guns, you know the terrain, so you think you can go out and put this animal down. I should remind you, that’s what the young man who died this morning thought.

  “I can’t stop you from doing this. There’s too many of you, and too few of me. There’s also no season or limit on wild hogs in Tennessee. I can only ask you to please, please leave it to me, and the professionals I bring in. We want this animal stopped as badly as you do, and we will waste no time getting it done. We were out this morning, and we’ll be back out there tonight. So please: stay out of our way. Keep your friends out of our way. We were only a few minutes too late to save that boy this morning, and if he hadn’t been there, we might’ve gotten the animal already. I don’t want any more deaths on my conscience, or yours.”

  After letting that sink in, he added, “Are there any questions?”

  The man leaning on the wall raised his hand. “Don Swayback from the Weekly Horn, Mr. Cates. Are you certain only one pig is involved?”

  “There’s a herd of normal-sized ones that accompany the big one, but we’re pretty sure it made the actual attack. Smaller pigs just don’t behave that way.”

  A teenage girl in the middle of the crowd raised her hand. He nodded at her, and she stood up.

  “Janet Harper, from the Raven’s Caw,” the girl said, mimicking the other reporter’s tone. “Is it safe to say that this pig is more dangerous than ever, now that it’s developed a taste for human flesh?”

  The crowd buzzed at that thought. Jack, taking note of her age, asked, “Miss Harper, just where is this paper you represent?”

  “Cloud County High.”

  He felt a surge of relief. At least it wasn’t some outside media organization that had gotten wind of this. “Miss Harper, this is an animal. It’s an opportunistic feeder, and in both cases, the victims were alone, and the encounter appears to have been completely random. The animal certainly wasn’t hunting human beings; that just wouldn’t happen.”

  “Unless it’s out for revenge. Like the Tsavo lions.”

  Jack was surprised she knew that story. “That’s not really a valid comparison, Miss Harper.”

  “Well, what should we do to stay safe, Mr. Cates?” She said this with the cocky attitude so many teens had toward adults, and Jack felt a bit of admiration for her nerve. But she’d asked a valid question, and he took it seriously.

  “Don’t go into the woods alone is the most important thing. And don’t go searching for this animal, either by actively hunting or putting out bait. I have trained hunters preparing to find it and finish it off. It’s not a job for amateurs, as I said. Now—” He looked out at the crowd. “—are there any other questions?”

  The teenage girl immediately raised her hand again, but he looked past her, for anyone else. All he saw were worried faces, though. With no choice, he said, “Yes, Miss Harper?”

  “Just one more question, Mr.
Cates. Has anyone posted a reward for this animal?”

  “No, there is no reward that I’m aware of. It would be very unwise for someone to offer one, because it could lead to more people getting injured, and that might lead to lawsuits.”

  “So what should people do if they see it?”

  “That is a very sensible question, Miss Harper, and the answer is, call me. I have a stack of business cards up here with my name, number, and e-mail address.”

  The girl nodded, said, “Thank you, Mr. Cates,” and sat back down. He thought, If she’s that serious as a teenager, what will she be like when she’s grown? And he spared a kind thought for any unfortunate husband she might acquire.

  * * *

  As people left the Pair-A-Dice, Bliss joined Jack at the stage. She’d watched from the back of the room, with Bronwyn Chess, and Dolph Pettit.

  He looked up from powering down the projector, saw her, and smiled. “How do you think that went?”

  “They heard you. The sensible ones listened.”

  “Like that girl reporter?”

  “Janet? She is sensible, believe it or not. She’s just young.”

  “And the ones who aren’t sensible?”

  “They wouldn’t listen if you shot fire from your eyes.”

  He laughed. “I’ll have to see about that next time, after the way my Simpsons joke went over. My job doesn’t usually require a lot of showmanship.”

  “Are you really going back out tonight?”

  “Dolph and I are. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  She touched his arm. “I’ll be at the fire station all night. When you get done, come by. I’ll make you both breakfast.”

  He met her steady blue eyes, and for a moment they communicated without speaking. At last he said, “We might just do that. If we’re not too beat.”

  “It’s an open invitation.”

  “Thank you.”

  Again they looked at each other, until Bliss nodded and walked away. Jack watched after her long after she’d gone through the door with Bronwyn.

  “Pretty thing,” Dolph said.

  “Which one?” he asked, trying to appear casual.