“Hey, Doyle. Got a surprise for you,” Ray called, coming out the; front door of the cabin. He walked to his truck, reached into the bed, and pulled out two six-foot-long spears. Each had a wooden shaft fitted with an eighteen-inch steel spearhead.
Doyle tried not to wince. “What you got there, Ray?” He knew full well what the spears were for. He just thought he’d see what Ray had to say for himself.
“What’s it look like? Boar spears, man. We’re gonna do it the old-time way. None of this blastin’ away with guns, scarin’ every man and beast within hearin’ distance. This is the way real men used to do it.” Ray was grinning. He held a spear in each hand, shafts rested in the dirt at his feet, points toward the sky. His eyes ran up and down first one, then the other. He tossed one out toward Doyle, as casually as if it were a broomstick.
Doyle reached out to grab the spear, but his positioning was awkward. The end of the shaft caught on the ground and the point accelerated downward, glancing off Hammer’s cut vest. “Damn, Ray.” The dog scampered a few feet away. Stood glaring at Ray.
“Aw, he’ll be fine. Had his vest on. No big fuckin’ deal. Pick up the damn spear and let’s get this show on the road.”
“Fuckin’ spears, Ray?”
“It’s only for your sake it’s not just knives.”
Not too far from Doyle’s front steps, he turned Dixie and Mylo loose. They went off, zigzagging their way into the woods, and Doyle and Ray followed, each one with a catch dog on a leash. Ray had Otis, the big bulldog, and Doyle had Hammer. Neither dog liked Ray too much, but Doyle figured Hammer probably liked him a little less after being hit with the spear.
Doyle didn’t mind hog hunting. Hell, he had even supposed that he enjoyed it. What he really enjoyed, though, was just being out tramping around in the woods with his dogs. The meat for the table was nice. When he looked at Ray, he saw a whole different story. In the woods, Ray’s face constricted into what Doyle thought of as a pine knot. His brows furrowed between his eyes, his mouth held tightly, lips seeming to disappear. With Ray, it was all about the kill.
Crossing the prairie, a big king snake slid through the grass in front of Doyle, each scale reflecting a bead of sunlight. Hammer whined, wanting to lunge at it, but Doyle held him back. He paused to watch the serpent go on its way. As he watched, Ray came up beside him with Otis. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ray take his spear by the shaft and swing it like a hatchet, the head whistling down upon the king snake, chopping it neatly in half on the ground. Doyle stood and stared at where the snake writhed in two pieces, dark and gleaming against the yellow grass. He couldn’t help but think it had the look of a creature surprised that its normal mode of locomotion had failed it.
Ray laughed a big belly laugh. He bent over, put his hands on his knees. Acting like he’d never seen anything so funny. Doyle just looked at him. Too mad to say anything, he marched off in the direction of the dogs past the snake, now slowing in its contortions as it bled into the dirt.
“Come on, Doyle,” Ray called from somewhere behind him. “You gotta admit that was goddamned funny.”
Doyle let Hammer drag him into the swamp, happy to get clear of Ray for a while. He could catch up when he caught up. Be just as fine if I didn’t see that fucker for the rest of the day, he thought.
Just then, the bay dogs let loose, their barks resounding through the cypress forest. Hammer pulled harder, knowing what was to come, and Doyle had to jog behind, gripping the dog’s leash in one hand, his spear in the other. He imagined what he looked like running around the woods with a spear. A damned lunatic, that’s what.
Hammer took him on the straightest line to where the other dogs were making all the racket. Doyle busted through palmettos, waded creeks, not thinking much now about gators or turtles, only wanting to catch up to the chase. Finally, he caught sight of some movement through the trees. The two leopard dogs were circling a big boar. The hog was turning, trying to keep both dogs in front of him, grunting and looking for a chance to slash at the dogs with his tusks.
Hammer tugged at the lead, and Doyle had to drop his spear and hold on with both hands. He considered letting Hammer go in by himself, but it would probably be safer to wait until Ray showed up with Otis.
He stood there watching the dogs and the boar, Mylo and Dixie dancing just beyond the reach of the tusks, occasionally darting in to nip at the hog’s hindquarters. The boar’s eyes seemed so small in that massive head, and yet they burned with a primal hatred. Doyle had been charged before, and he had always heard horror stories of hunters getting treed for hours by an angry pig, or worse, slashed up and left to bleed in the woods. His daddy had always told him that there wasn’t nothing meaner than a big old boar, all them male juices running through his body for so many years made him gristly and ornery to the point he couldn’t see straight.
Mylo danced a little too close just then, and the hog spun around and slashed wildly, catching the dog on the hindquarters and opening up a gash. The dog yelped a little and blood leaked down his leg. “Dammit, Ray,” Doyle said. He looked behind him to see if he could find his brother somewhere.
The sound of the boar’s high-pitched squeal, like a woman’s scream, brought his attention back to the fray. As if by magic, the hog suddenly had a big white dog hanging from his ear as he thrashed and turned. Otis. What the fuck? Ray must have come in from a different direction. What the hell was he doing just letting Otis go in there alone? Doyle unclipped Hammer’s leash and the dog flew in to latch onto the boar’s other ear.
He looked around for Ray and found him standing stiffly by the trunk of a huge cypress tree. Ray wasn’t watching the dogs, though. He was staring right at Doyle. “What the fuck, Ray?” he called.
Ray didn’t answer back. Instead, he walked forward to where the dogs now had the boar’s head pinned to the ground, waiting until he got within a few feet before taking his eyes off Doyle. He shifted his gaze to the boar, the dogs still moiling around, Mylo still too wound up to take notice of the cut on his hip, blood drying and matting in his fur, and lifted his spear. Brought it down with force behind the pig’s shoulder, into its rib cage. The squeals increased in volume. Ray pulled the spear out. Stuck the boar again. Again. Again.
The two bay dogs, now smelling the blood, grew even more riled, danced even closer, yearning to lick the boar’s wounds, roll in the blood on the ground. Mylo, in his excitement, bumped the back of Ray’s knee, causing it to buckle. In a flash, Ray turned and kicked the dog hard up under its belly, lifting it off the ground. Mylo landed with a thump, tried to drag himself away, but Ray was quicker. He stabbed the dog in the back of its neck and it went limp.
“Goddamn you, Ray.” Doyle walked up and looked down at his fallen dog. There was nothing he could do to help Mylo. The dog just lay there, twitching. “Why’d you have to go and do something like that?”
Ray stared back at him and Doyle thought he saw something of the boar’s eyes in his own brother’s face. “What’s a matter, little brother? Sad you lost your pup?”