“Bonjour, Pierre! . . . Ha-ha-ha!” Emile had encountered the first of his cronies outside the café.
Pierre was tying up his dog, and had made some risible remark about Emile’s chien de race.
“Never mind, I’ve got nearly a livre of truffles today!” Emile countered, exaggerating.
The barks of more dogs sounded as Emile and Pierre went into the small café. Dogs were allowed in, but some dogs who might snarl at the others were always tied outside.
One dog nipped playfully at Samson’s tail, and Samson turned and charged in a leisurely way, not going far enough to make his rope taut, but the dog rolled over in his effort to escape. All three dogs barked, and to Samson it sounded derogatory—towards him. Samson regarded the dogs with a sullen and calm antipathy. Only his pinkish little eyes were quick, taking in all the dogs, daring them or any one of them to advance. The dogs smiled uneasily. At last Samson collapsed by leaning back and letting his legs fold under him. He was in the sun and comfortable enough despite the cold air. But he was hungry again, therefore a bit annoyed.
Emile had found René in the café, drinking pastis at the bar. Emile meant to linger until there was just time to walk home and not annoy his wife Ursule, who liked Sunday dinner to start not later than a quarter past noon.
René wore high rubber boots. He’d been cleaning a drain of his cowbarn, he said. He talked about the truffle-hunting contest that was to take place in two weeks. Emile had not heard of it.
“Look!” said René, pointing to a printed notice at the right of the door. La Compagnie de la Reine d’Aquitaine offered a first prize of a cuckoo clock plus a hundred francs, a second prize of a transistor radio (one couldn’t tell the size from the picture), a third prize of fifty francs to the finders of the most truffles on Sunday, January 27. Judges’ decisions to be final. Local newspaper and television coverage was promised, and the town of Cassouac was to be the judges’ base.
“I’m giving Lunache a rest this Sunday, maybe next too,” René said. “That way she’ll have time to work up a truffle appetite.”
Lunache was René’s best truffling pig, a black and white female. Emile smiled a little slyly at his friend, as if to say, “You know very well Samson’s better than Lunache!” Emile said, “That should be amusing. Let’s hope it’s not raining.”
“Or snowing! Another pastis? I invite you.” René put some money on the counter.
Emile glanced at the clock on the wall and accepted.
When he went out ten minutes later, he saw that Samson had chased the three tied-up dogs to the extremity of their leads, and was pretending to strain at his rope—a sturdy rope, but Samson might have been able to break it with a good tug. Emile felt rather proud of Samson.
“This monster! He needs a muzzle!” said a youngish man in muddy riding boots, a man Emile didn’t recognize. He was patting one of the dogs in a reassuring way.
Emile was ready to return a spate of argument: hadn’t the dog been annoying the pig first? But it crossed his mind that the young man might be a representative of La Reine d’Aquitaine come to look the scene over. Silence and a polite nod was best, Emile thought. Was one of the dogs bleeding a little on the hind leg? Emile didn’t tarry to look more closely. He untied Samson and ambled off. After all, Emile was thinking, he’d had Samson’s lower tusks sawed off three or four months ago. The tusks had started to grow higher than his snout. His upper tusks were still with him, but they were less dangerous because they curved inward.
Samson, in a vaguer though angrier way, was also thinking about his teeth at that moment. If he hadn’t been mysteriously deprived of his rightful lower tusks long ago, he could have torn that dog up. One upward sweep of his nose under the dog’s belly, which in fact Samson had given . . . Samson’s breath steamed in the air. His four-toed feet, only the two middle toes on each foot touching the ground, bore him along as if his great bulk were light as a white balloon. Now Samson was leading like a thoroughbred dog straining at the leash.
Emile, knowing Samson was angry, gave him serious and firm tugs. Emile’s hand hurt, his arms were growing tired, and as soon as they neared the open gate of the farm’s court, Emile gladly released the rope. Samson went trotting directly towards the pig pen where the food was. Emile opened the low gate for him, followed Samson’s galloping figure, and unbuckled the belt collar while Samson guzzled potato peelings.
“Oink!—Oink-oink!”
“Whuff-f!”
“Hwon-nk!”
The other pigs and piglets fell back from Samson.
Emile went into the kitchen. His wife was just setting a big platter of cold diced beets and carrots, sliced tomatoes and onions in the center of the table. Emile gave a greeting which included Ursule, their son Henri and his wife Yvonne and their little one Jean-Paul. Henri helped a bit on the farm, though he was a full-time worker in a Cahors factory that made Formica sheets. Henri was not fond of farm work. But it was cheaper for him and his family to live here than to take an apartment or buy a house just now.
“Good truffling?” asked Henri, with a glance at the sack.
Emile was just emptying the contents of the sack into a pan of cold water in the sink. “Not bad,” said Emile.
“Eat, Emile,” said Ursule. “I’ll wash them later.”
Emile sat down and began eating. He started to tell them about the truffle-hunting contest, then decided it might be bad luck to mention it. There were still two weeks in which to mention it, if he felt like it. Emile was imagining the cuckoo clock fixed on the wall in front of him, striking about now the quarter hour past twelve. And he would say a few words on the television (if it was true that there’d be television), and he’d have his picture in the local newspaper.
The main reason Emile did not take Samson truffling the following weekend was that he did not want to diminish the amount of truffles in that particular forest. This forest was known as “the-little-forest-down-the-slope” and was owned by an old man who didn’t even live on his land any more but in a nearby town. The old man had never objected to truffle-hunting on his land, nor had the current caretakers who lived in the farmhouse nearly a kilometer away from the forest.
So Samson had a leisurely fortnight of eating and of sleeping in the scoop of hard-packed hay in the pig shed, which was a lean-to against the main barn.
On the big day, January 27, Emile shaved. Then he made his way to the Café de la Chasse in his village, the meeting point. Here were René and eight or ten other men, all of whom Emile knew and nodded a greeting to. There were also a few boys and girls of the village come to watch. They were all laughing, smoking, pretending it was a silly game, but Emile knew that inside each man with a truffle-dog or truffle-pig was a determination to win first prize, and if not first then second. Samson showed a desire to attack Georges’s dog Gaspar, and Emile had to tug at him and kick him. Just as Emile had suspected, the young man of two weeks ago, again in the riding boots, was master of ceremonies. He put on a smile, and spoke to the group from the front steps of the café.
“Gentlemen of Cassouac!” he began, then proceeded to announce the terms of the contest sponsored by La Reine d’Aquitaine, manufacturers of the best pâté aux truffes in all France.
“Where’s the television?” a man asked, more to raise a laugh from his chums than to get an answer.
The young man laughed too. “It’ll be here when we all come back—a special crew from Toulouse—around eleven-thirty. I know all of you want to get home soon after noon so as not to annoy your wives!”
More good-natured “Ha-ha’s!” It was a frosty day, sharpening everyone’s edge.
“Just for formality,” said the young man in riding boots, “I’ll take a look in your sacks to see that all’s correct.” He stepped down and did so, and every man showed a clean bag or sack except for apples and bits of cheese or meat which were to b
e rewards for their animals.
One of the onlookers made a side bet: dogs against pigs. He had managed to find a pig man.
Final petits rouges were downed, then they were off, straggling with dogs and pigs down the unpaved road, fanning off into favorite fields, towards cherished trees. Emile and Samson, who was full of honks and oinks this morning, made for the-little-forest-down-the-slope. He was not the only man to do so: François with his black pig was going there too.
“Plenty of room for both of us, I think,” said François pleasantly.
That was true, and Emile agreed. He gave Samson a kick as they entered the forest, letting the cleats of his boot land solidly on Samson’s backside, trying to convey that there was a greater urgency about the truffle-hunting today. Samson turned irritably and made a feint at Emile’s legs, but bent to his work and snuffled at the foot of a tree. Then he abandoned the tree.
François, quite a distance away among the trees, was already digging with his fork, Emile saw. Emile gave Samson his head and the pig lumbered on, nose to the ground.
“Hwun-nf!—Ha-wun-nf! Umpf!” Samson had found a good cache and he knew it.
So did Emile. Emile tied Samson up, and dug as fast as he could. The ground was harder than a fortnight ago.
The aroma of truffles came stronger to Samson as Emile unearthed them. He strained at his rope, recoiled and charged forward again. There was a dull snap—and he was free! His leather collar had broken. Samson plunged his snout into the hollowed earth and began to eat with snorts of contentment.
“Son of a bitch!—Merde!” Emile gave Samson a mighty kick in his right ham. Goddamn the old belt! Emile had no choice but to waste precious minutes untying the rope from the tree and tying it again around the neck of Samson, who made every effort to evade him. That was to say, Samson rotated in a circle around the truffle hoard, keeping his muzzle on the same spot, eating. Emile got the rope tied, and at once tugged and cursed with all his might.
François’s distant but loud laughter did not make Emile feel any more kindly towards Samson. Damn the beast, he’d eaten at least half the find here! Emile kicked Samson where his testicles would have been, if Emile had not had them removed at the same time as Samson’s lower tusks.
Samson retaliated by charging Emile at knee level. Emile fell forward over the rushing pig, and barely had time to protect his face from the ground. The pain in his knees was agonizing. He was afraid for a few seconds that his legs had been broken. Then he heard François yelling with indignation. Samson was loose again and was invading François’s place.
“Hey, Emile! You’re going to be disqualified! Get this goddamn pig away from me! Get him—or I’ll shoot him!”
Emile knew that François had no gun. Emile got to his feet carefully. His legs were not broken, but his eyes felt awful from the shock, and he knew he’d have a pair of prize shiners by tomorrow. “Damn you, Samson, get the hell away!” Emile yelled, trudging towards François and the two pigs. François was now whacking at Samson with a tree branch he had found, and Emile couldn’t blame François.
“A hell of a way to . . .” François’s words were lost.
Emile had never been very chummy with François Malbert, and he knew François would try to disqualify him, if he possibly could, mainly because Samson was an excellent truffler and presented a threat. This thought, however, concentrated Emile’s anger more on Samson for the moment than on François. Emile pulled at Samson’s rope, yanked it hard, and François came down at the same time with the branch on Samson’s head, and the branch broke.
Samson charged again, and Emile, suddenly nimble in desperation, looped the end of the rope a couple of times around a tree. Samson was jerked off his feet.
“No use digging any more here! That’s not fair!” François said, indicating his half-eaten truffle bed.
“Ah, oui? It’s an accident!” Emile retorted.
But François was trudging away, in the direction of the Café de la Chasse.
Emile now had the little forest to himself. He set about gathering what was left of François’s truffle find. But he was afraid he was going to be disqualified. All because of Samson.
“Now get to work, you bastard!” Emile said to Samson, and hit him on the rump with a short piece of the branch that had broken.
Samson only stared at Emile, facing him, in case another blow was coming.
Emile groped for a piece of cheese in his sack, and tossed it on the ground as an act of appeasement, also to whet Samson’s appetite, perhaps. Samson did look as angry as a pig could look.
Samson snuffed up the cheese.
“Let’s go, boy!” Emile said.
Samson got moving, but very slowly. He simply walked. He wasn’t even sniffing the ground. Emile fancied that Samson’s shoulders were hunched in anger, that he was ready to charge again. But that was absurd, he told himself. Emile pulled Samson towards a promising birch tree.
Samson smelled the truffles in Emile’s sack. His saliva was still running from the truffles he had gobbled up from the hole in the ground. Samson turned with agility and pressed his nose against the sack at Emile’s side. Samson had stood up a little on his hind legs, and his weight knocked Emile down. Samson poked his nose into the sack. What a blissful smell! He began to eat. There was cheese too.
Emile, on his feet now, jabbed at Samson with his fork, hard enough to break the skin in three places where the tines sank. “Get away, you bastard!”
Samson did leave the sack, but only to rush at Emile. Crack! He hit Emile’s knees again. The man lay on the ground, trying to bring his fork into position for striking, and in a flash Samson charged.
Somehow the pig’s belly hit Emile in the face, or the point of his chin, and Emile was knocked half unconscious. He shook his head, and made sure he still had a good grip on his fork. He had suddenly realized that Samson could and might kill him, if he didn’t protect himself.
“Au secours!” Emile yelled. “Help!”
Emile brandished the fork at Samson, intending to scare the pig off while he got to his feet.
Samson had no intention, except to protect himself. He saw the fork as an enemy, a very clear challenge, and he blindly attacked it. The fork went askew and dropped as if limp. Samson’s front hooves stood triumphant on Emile’s abdomen. Samson snorted. And Emile gasped, but only a few times.
The awful pink and damp nose of the pig was almost in Emile’s face, and he recalled from childhood many pigs he had known, pigs who had seemed to him as gigantic as this Samson now crushing the breath out of him. Pigs, sows, piglets of all patterns and coloring seemed to combine and become this one monstrous Samson who most certainly—Emile now knew it—was going to kill him, just by standing on him. The fork was out of reach. Emile flailed his arms with his last strength, but the pig wouldn’t budge. And Emile could not gasp one breath of air. Not even an animal any longer, Emile thought, this pig, but an awful, evil force in a most hideous form. Those tiny, stupid eyes in the grotesque flesh! Emile tried to call out and found that he couldn’t make as much noise as a small bird.
When the man became quiet, Samson stepped off his body and nuzzled him in the side to get at the truffle sack again. Samson was calming down a bit. He no longer held his breath, or panted, as he had done alternately for the last minutes, but began to breathe normally. The heavenly scent of truffles further soothed him. He snuffled, sighed, inhaled, ate, his snout and tongue seeking out the last morsels from the corners of the khaki sack. And all his own gleanings! But this thought came not at all clearly to Samson. In fact, he had a vague feeling that he was going to be shooed away from his banquet, yet who was there to shoo him away now? This very special sack, into which he had seen so many black truffles vanishing, out of which had come measly, contemptible crumbs of yellow cheese—all that was finished, and now the sack was his. Samson even ate some of
the cloth.
Then, still chewing, he urinated. He listened, and looked around, and felt quite secure and in command of things—at least of himself. He could walk anywhere he chose, and he chose to walk away from the village of Cassouac. He trotted for a bit, then walked, and was sidetracked by the scent of still more truffles. It took Samson some time to dig them up, but it was glorious work, and his reward was his own, every gritty, superb crinkle. Samson came to a stream, a little crusty at the edges with ice, and drank. He went on, dragging his rope, not caring where he went. He was hungry again.
Hunger impelled him towards a group of low buildings, whence he smelled chicken dung and the manure of horses or cows. Samson strolled a little diffidently into the cobbled courtyard where some pigeons and chickens walked about. They made way for Samson. Samson was used to that. He was looking for a feed trough. He found a trough with some wet bread in it, a low trough. He ate. Then he collapsed against a stack of hay, half sheltered by a roof. It was now dark.
From the two lighted windows in the lower part of the house near by came music and voices, sounds of an ordinary household.
As dawn broke, the wandering, pecking chickens in the courtyard and near Samson did not really awaken him. He dozed on, and only opened one eye sleepily when he heard the gritty tread of a man.
“Ho-ha! What have we got here?” murmured the farmer, peering at the enormous pale pig lying in his hay. A rope dangled from the pig’s neck, a good sturdy rope, he saw, and the pig was an even more splendid specimen of his kind. Whom did he belong to? The farmer knew all the pigs in the district, knew their types, anyway. This one must have come from a long way. The end of the rope was frayed.
The farmer Alphonse decided to keep his mouth shut. After more or less hiding Samson for a few days in a back field which was enclosed, Alphonse brought him forward once more and let him join the pigs he had, all black ones. He wasn’t concealing the white pig, he reasoned, and if anyone came looking for such a pig, he could say the pig had simply wandered on to his land, which was true. Then he would give the pig back, of course, after being sure the inquirer knew that the pig’s lower tusks had been sawn off, that he’d been castrated and so forth. Meanwhile Alphonse debated selling him on the market or trying him out at truffle-hunting before the winter was over. He’d try the truffling first.
The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder Page 7
