Big Pig!!!

[Fred Douglass]

This is familiar territory for NE huntahs:
I used to "point game" for "hunters" from Lynn, Saugus, Somahvile and other garden-spots nath of Bahstin. My partner in this endeavor was Jace Standish, no finer wilderness guide exists.

Our drill was as follows. Dun field-jackets, wool spats and Muk-luks(?) or "Bear-paws", a silent-trained Malemute (?) dog, a .303 Lee-Enfiled Mark 5 Jungle Carbine for me (a good brush-gun, but about as accurate as a Frisbee) and a .30-30 over-under Winchester lever(!?) action for Jace. How a lever action fed that two-bore machine, I'd like to know (B-in-B, you there?) My gun had the 23" barrel (hmmm), flash-hider and the fabled Malay or "Asiatic" stock. The latter meant you had to pull it back another 3", or it was like Larry Csonka stiff-arming a FS in the shoulder. With 245 deer-tip loads...well, you can imagine,

We'd meet and greet our party (most of whom had breath like mince-pie at 0730 a.m.!) and spot them astern. Jace and I would then walk up the vales, toward a deer we'd sighted earlier. We'd work past him (spotting on his breath), jump the ridge and spook him back toward our "hunters". You KNOW what was next! We had about 15 seconds to ass-hug a big pine tree before the fusilade erupted.

We'd call "cease fire", then set off on the spoor, in order to dispatch the poor gut-shot hind. Now, class, I know you're about to ask: "WHERE'S THE PORK?" Wel-l-l-l here's the Rest of the Story!

It seems, sometime around the 1890s, a local rich-boy imported a Noachian Cornucopia of game from Yurp. Among these stalwart beasties were European Deer-Elk and...and...yes, Stickle-back Boar. Um. Good choice.

Keep your javelinas, Poppy, an' SIT DOWN! THESE boys are steam-powered mountain-engine locomotives! I once saw one DISASSEMBLE a stone wall trying to get a chipmunk! They look like wart-hogs--you know half-head---all balls and tusks your Uncle Hiram could only dream about. 150 lbs. of fast-trot, poop-your-panties-polka dance-callers. They usually lie doggo, until you've walked PAST them. Can you saw "femural artery" class? (See "Scorebox" below).

How's Piggy fit in here---weren't we stalking deer? Okay. On this particular day, we'd finished off a deer and called the hunting party forward to dress him out. We made them lock and stack arms (Duh, right?). Jace and I let the Malemute run off some steam, up the vale a bit, toward a copse of Scotch Pine. Little did we know that the pine contained Mr. Piggy, who was awakening to the odor of the deer innards 300 yds south. Puts the dog upwind, too, eh?

Jace and I are up on parallel eskers (snow's thinner there and we were spooking deer AWAY from the "hunters" south of us). The dog's got 100 feet or so on us. We-l-l-l we're chambers-dry ("thumb-up-the-...." mode). And---and---you know what's next.

Malemute meets Piggy. (Olfactorily-challeng- ed dog?) Piggy E-FREAKIN'-RUPTS outta that pine, brushes the LUCKY dog aside (these boys have tusks you could hang your snowmobile on!). The general store at Francestown kept score back then---since 1919: Humans 59, Pigs 9....LUCKY DOG.

Piggy comes out of there like a late freight. Jace and I slide down in front of Mr. Piggy (protect the dog, who's being REALLY smart about now, and protect the hunters, who are quite visible and clearly "boar-sighted" [sorry, had to] by now). Heart rate? Priceless. I'm point, sliding sideways and damn near soiling myself.

My first shot breaks Piggy's front left wheel. By the way, the Lee-Enfield is the FASTEST bolt action in the world. I'll put $100 on the table--pick it up if you can roll one in quicker--note I didn't say "aim and fire"--just rack one in. Warren Commission, Mauser, Oswald---my ass.

My second shot hit the f%cking Chateau Frontenac in Key-bec! Jace chimed in and BOOMED one off the pig's head. Remember gators' heads (back when the Gators were Republicans)? Like a gothic arch or an upturned boat---they shed bullets like rain. Ditto Piggy's pate.

Jaces' eyes are like boiled eggs. Piggy turns into him.("Who gimme that migraine?") Oh, baby. Jace's final shot goes through the mandible and heart-shoots the hog. The pig STILL churns on, up the slight rise, a tusk hooks into Jaces wool gaiter, spins the pig out and drops Jace like a leg-whip. The pig raises his head, and, clearly dying, eyes Jason with dead malevolence. (Goose- bumps writing this today). Remember "blood in the eye"? Guttating capillary blood, pooling in the tear ducts? No kiddin'--it's true. Jesus Wept, what a pig!

Do I hunt any more? Hell, I can't even look a pork chop in the eye! That pig HAD to be a Marine!!! Dead Gospel story.