If they heard, they made no sign.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DORA AND I arrived early at the town hall on the night Whitbrow met to discuss the Chase of Pigs and whether to continue it. Even though school was starting in another few days and the roads needed attention and the bank in the mill town would no longer loan Whitbrow money, the question of the pigs was the only issue on the docket. The meeting was to start shortly before dark, but the sun was still round and orange just above the houses when we got there.
The place was packed.
A wave of human warmth hit us when I opened the door to the beat-up old building, and it was clear we were going to have to spend the night standing. The whole room fluttered with the movement of makeshift fans. I spotted Pastor Lyndon standing on the far side of the room near his seated wife and daughter, looking unsure of what to do in a crowded room he was not in charge of.
God, the whole town had come.
It got worse.
By the time the meeting was officially begun, the doors had been stopped open so a growing crowd could listen in from the yard of the town hall. Some spread blankets. Those that brought chairs sat in these and smoked, and swatted at the mosquitoes that seemed intent on bleeding the whole town white.
“Lord-a-God,” one woman near me said, “took them a while to know we wasn’t in our homes, but they got our number now.”
“In defense of the Chase of Pigs,” Old Man Gordeau said as he opened the meeting in his capacity as mayor, “some would say we ought to keep it cause that’s the way we always done. But times is harder now than they have been since I was a young man, and I don’t rightly see the point in herdin good animals into the woods. Now, I didn’t like it when them government sons a bitches came and bought up our piglets in ’33 and killed em all. They cut babies out a sows and plugged the river up with dead ones. But I had to admit, that did raise the price of pork. The difference bein that they was doin it all over the country. We’re the only idiots doin it now, and nobody’s payin us a red cent.” Some in the room started to clap, but Gordeau waved them down. “Pastor Lyndon here is goin to tell us God wants it, an he knows better than me what God wants, at least s’far as scripture goes. But I don’t think God wants us to go hungry. And I don’t think God wants us to turn animals that don’t know how to fend for themselves out to die when they’s used to havin their corn give to them in a trough. That’s all. And, Reverend, I’ll start goin to church more.”
The people in the hot hall were glad to laugh. This town liked its mayor, and those who wanted the Chase stopped felt their cause swell; as he sat back down, applause still rippled through the room.
Next up was Lester Gordeau, but as he took the podium Old Man Gordeau shouted, “Sit down, boy! Before I give you the wire end of the brush!” and got another spasm of laughter.
Lester did not laugh. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he did not look up much as he spoke. He said, “I think we should keep the Chase because we always had it. It was ours as long as I can remember, and I don’t think no other place had it even once. I mean, Morgan’s always been a bigger town and they ain’t got it. I know it costs and times is hard, but I’ll keep givin what I can if others will. I mean, the mill town ain’t even got it.”
His father could not resist speaking out of turn again, and he said, “Know what they got in the mill town that we ain’t got? Pork chops!”
The hall boomed with laughter and Lester sat down abashed.
A small but distinct sound of surprise rose from the gathering when Martin Cranmer was called to the podium. He came in from my left, pushing his way in from the yard, mumbling what looked like “Excuse me” through his beard, and then he stood and looked at the people for a long time before he spoke.
He was wearing the same tight, pale yellow suit he wore to the Social. His hard hands gripped the sides of the podium so the knuckles were white, but his face was calm. I was sure he was drunk in that way that only career drinkers get; he seemed sober, but his eyes shone as if he had a secret and exclusive communion with the wellspring of all knowledge.
Martin said, “I know a lot of you don’t like me and that’s fine because I only like a few of you. I hunt things in the woods and I stuff them and I sell them. Some of you good Christians buy another product I sell in jars because I run it through twice for good measure, I charge the thump keg just right, and you know I don’t cut it with embalming fluid like MacLeish did before you ran him out of town. Some of you trade me the yeast or corn or sugar I need, but other than that I don’t need people. If you all disappeared tomorrow I would be as happy as the man in the moon.”
“Get to the point,” someone said from the back, not yelling, but loud enough to be heard.
“My point, without putting too fine a point on it, is that marching those pigs out into the woods is the most intelligent thing you people do. Every month I watch a couple of young men go by my house and to the river with the pigs. I watch the fellows take that little ferry off the rocks and load the animals on and pull them across the river and let them go. And sometimes, just sometimes, I hear squealing.”
Now they were listening.
“Have any of you ever seen a pig running around loose in those woods?”
Nobody spoke.
“Lester, you fish that river. Have you ever seen one of those pigs?”
Lester shook his head in a gesture that was barely visible.
“So my point is that something, or someone, or something who is someone is making a meal of those swine. And if you stop sending them, do you think it is possible that your pig-eater, or pigeaters, might decide to come to town for supper?”
“You’re eating those goddamn pigs!” Buster Simms shouted. The people laughed.
“You are wrong,” Martin said. “I do not eat the flesh of pigs, and neither do I eat carrion, although I have been known to put straw up its ass. I have become a Moslem. And if any of you holy heathens would like to hear the true gospel of the prophet Mohammed, I will be happy to testify while wearing the outfit that is traditional to the whirling dervish.”
“Your time’s up. Now git off the damn podium,” Estel Blake said.
Martin put his hands over his chest, performed a Moslem bow, and then left, squeezing past frowning townsfolk. He stumbled and nearly fell when he reached the door, then disappeared outside.
Paul, who was an aldermen as well as owner of the general store, read from the sign-up sheet and saw that he was next to speak. He pulled at where his tie pinched his neck and stood before the crowd, saying, “I’m with Gordeau senior. Seems to me we been wastin a lot a pig flesh. Two pigs a month don’t sound like much, less it’s your turn to give em up. I know our folks took the pigs out startin in olden days, but our folks also rode horses or mules and none of them had the electric lights, which a few of our businesses have, and our houses will soon. These are new times. Lot of you been payin me on credit til times get better. Well, times ain’t better. Some of you ain’t paid me in a year. Still, nobody owes me as much as one healthy breed sow would fetch at market. The Good Book says, ‘Render under Caesar.’ Seems to me a man ought to pay his worldly debts first. Thank you.”
And so it continued into the night. Miles Falmouth stood for continuing the tithe of pigs, and his words carried weight since he was the last one to lose livestock. He also went off on a tirade about how squatters had been coming into town now and again, and how they were likely the ones eating the pigs since they had no professions and could not be trusted. Ursie Noble stood up and said that she liked plaiting flowers for the pigs, and that since she did not have much that was fun to do, she would hate to give it up.