Next morning reflections.

So I like TUSKERS.

It flowed out of me and that can't be bad.

But the inevitable happens when I start to edit.  I start to see the flaws.  It's the turning on of the critical part of the brain.

Yesterday, I was overcome with First Draft Infatuation, as well as Finished Book Euphoria.

Last night it was, "Oh."

What usually happens with second drafts is that I try to fill out and develop the story.  I think it could probably use more description, for instance. 

But it's a good solid framework.

Of course, some of the things I like about it may not work.

Basically I introduce each character, give them some background, and then have them come up against the killer pigs.

Then I try to weave all the characters together. 

It's the spending time on the background of each character that is new, plus the extra dialogue.  I think I wrote fantasy when I started writing because I wasn't sure about dialogue, and I wasn't sure if I had experienced enough real life to write about it.

Killer pigs may not sound like real life, but in some ways its not about the pigs.

Led to the Slaughter isn't about werewolves.
The Vampire Evolution series isn't about vampires.
The Dead Spend No Gold isn't about Bigfoot.

It's about the people.

It was a wonderful experience to write a book so fast, a miracle, but it isn't the healthiest way to live I don't think...

Still, it's like a gift, and I don't feel like I should turn it down when it comes.

Tuskers. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Jenny whimpered at the sound of the crash downstairs, and I almost joined her in whimpering.  But despite the equality of our marriage (hell, she had earned most of our income over the years, but I’d never felt less the man for it) I was feeling something old-fashioned rising in me, giving me courage I didn’t think I had -- the need to protect my woman.

“Don’t go out there,” Jenny said, as I approached the bedroom door.

“Where’s the big flashlight,” I asked.

“I left it on the deck,” she said.  “Are the lights out too?”  She said with a steadily rising voice, as if this was the most terrifying thought of all.

I flipped the bedroom light on once or twice to reassure her.  “I was thinking of it more as a weapon.”

“Can’t we just wait until morning?”

“There might still be something I can do to keep them out,” I said, desperately thinking about all the doors and window of the house and wondering which of them were vulnerable and why.  “If we get stuck in here, we’re going be really trapped.  No food, no nothing.”

I cracked the door open an inch and listened.  I couldn’t hear anything from downstairs.  No matter how smart or weird the pigs were acting, I didn’t think they could manage to be stealthy.

“I don’t think any have gotten inside yet,” I whispered.  I slipped out the door before Jenny could answer.  I tiptoed to the hall door and got the big flashlight, which was perched precariously on the railing.

I closed the door quietly and went down the hallway.  I was aware of the pain in my foot, but it was distant, less important now.  My adrenaline was pumping so much, I suspected that the pain was being masked. I’d probably pay for it later, but for now I was just glad to have my mobility back.

I went down the stairs, stopping at every step and listening.

I reached the bottom just as another loud crash echoed through the house and seemed to shake it.  I was three steps up the stairs before I stopped myself.  I turned around and went back down.  Despite the loudness, it was clear to me now the noise was coming from outside.

I reached the kitchen, but something told me not to turn the light on.  I could hear the sound of movement outside the glass sliding doors to the patio.  I went closer.

Then I turned on my flashlight and turned the beam onto the patio.

It was hard to make sense of it at first.  The javelinas were moving around so fast, I couldn’t count them.  The outside table was upside down, like a turtle, and all the lawn chairs were knocked on their sides.  The “Hunter Hacienda” sign was hanging from one hook, and since it was eight feet up, I couldn’t figure out how, until I saw one of the bigger pigs spear a chair cushion with its tusk and send it flying into the air.

Then all movement stopped, as if the pigs were playing “Freeze.”  They turned their snouts in my directions.  I started counting them, mindlessly, and reached twenty-five, which wasn’t even half of them, when they started moving again.  They moved aside, to either side of the patio, leaving a path down the middle.

Razorback sauntered down the middle, seemingly in no hurry.  He reached the glass door and stared up at me, and I realized that he could somehow see me behind the beam.  I put the beam directly into his eyes.  At the same moment I realized I was thinking of it as a “he” instead of an “it,” because there was no denying the intelligence in his eyes.  The other pigs might all by mindless brutes, but he was a thinking creature.  And all his thoughts seemed were turned to chaos and malevolence. 

He turned away abruptly when the light hit his eyes, and trotted to the back of the patio.  The other pigs tracked his retreat with their eyes.  Even through the glass I could hear Razorback’s urgent grunting.  One of the pigs stepped forward, and then slowly turned toward the glass door.

I was backing away even before the pig started running. 

I nearly tripped on the rug my wife kept in front of the sink as the head of the javelina smashed into the door.  There was a loud crack, and the light of the flashlight shimmered off the forming crack, like a lightning bolt in the night sky. 

I turned and ran, but as I passed the pantry, I stopped and put the light on the rows of food.  What would be most useful?  What would last the longest?  I grabbed a big jar of peanut butter.

Then there was another crash behind me, and all thought of planning went out my head, and I just grabbed everything I could carry.  I turned and ran up the stairs, dropping cans and boxes of food behind me.  I reached the bedroom door and slammed it behind me.

I stood with my back to, rasping my breath, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst.  I listened, waiting for the sound pursuit.  But it was completely silent.  Even the noise from outside was gone.

Jenny hadn’t said a word when I came crashing into the room, nor did she say anything when I crawled into bed next to her.  She just reached out with trembling hands, and took me in her arms.

Against all expectation, I went to sleep.

Tuskers. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Pederson was on his fourth trip back from town, loaded with lumber.  He’d cleaned out the hardware of shotgun shells.  On his third trip, there had been five other people in line.  All he had to do was say the word, “Javelinas?” out loud and the conversation had taken off.

They were all having trouble with aggressive bands of pigs.  He knew all the names of the people in line, though he doubted they knew who he was.  He’d made it his business to know who his neighbors were.

“My cat went missing,” Harvey Johansson said.  “I keep her inside most of the time, and she’s a scaredy cat.  It would take some doing to catch her off guard.  But…these skunk pigs, they’re getting way too aggressive.  And sneaky.”

“I think we need to clean them out,” said Jerry Olsen.  “Cut their numbers down.”

Fred Carter spoke up.  “I came around the corner of my house to change hoses and ran smack dab into one.  I swear it growled at me.  Pigs don’t growl, do they?”

The conversation inspired them all.  The entire shelf of ammunition was completely wiped out.

“Maybe we should leave some for others,” Anthony Lawrence said, doubtfully.

“Don’t worry,” the clerk said cheerfully.  “We have a whole warehouse full.”

But Pederson noticed on his fourth trip, the shelves were still empty.  He stared at the high-end bow and arrow set for a long time, and then reluctantly turned away.  He suspected he didn’t have time to learn even the rudiments of bow hunting.

Though how hard could it be? He asked himself.

He turned around and snagged it and took it to the counter.  The box was dusty.  The huge price tag meant that most people in this town could never afford it.  It was a showpiece.

The same clerk was there, no longer looking so cheerful.  He eyed the huge price of the bow and looked at Pederson doubtfully, but when he was handed a Black Card, he ran it through and it passed.

“What’s going on, Mr. Pederson?  Everyone is acting crazy.  I can’t raise anyone at the warehouse.  My boss hasn’t come in today.  Is there something I should know?”

“What’s your name, son?  Where you from?”

“Mark,” he said.  “Mark McCallister.  I’m from Idaho.”

“Idaho, good.  Did you live in the country?  Know how to handle a gun?”

“Yes, sir.  Everyone knows how to handle a gun where I come from.”

“Good,” Pederson said.  “Buy one of your fine wares, and take it home with a box of ammunition.  Don’t bother to come to work tomorrow.   Where are you living now, Mark?”

“In town, over the old Sweeny grocery store.”

“You should be safe.”

“What do you mean safe?  What the hell is going on?”

“Just stay indoors.  If you see any javelinas, get inside quick.”

Pederson left him there with his mouth open.  He didn’t know the clerk, which meant he was newly arrived in town.  The young man might not even know what a javelina was. 

But Pederson needed to get back to the farm.  When he was driving into town, he’d seen a huge pack of the javelinas coming down the road.  By the time he’d reached the turn in the road where they had been, they’d vanished into the underbrush.  The sight had disturbed him.  Before this week, he’d never seen more than twenty javelinas together.

He was headed out to the door of the hardware store when he saw Bart Hoskins, the head of the local United Way drive.  He was a banker and one of the few people in town who knew about Pederson’s wealth.  He was rotund man, originally from L.A., but who pretended to be one of the old-timers because he’d arrived a couple of years before most of the other Snowbirds.

The banker winked at Pederson, like he always did.  Pederson had made it clear that if word ever got out about his money, that the largesse he bestowed on the United Way would come to an end.  Even then, he sometimes wondered if Bart’s love of notoriety would overcome his better nature.

“Lyle, good to see you!” 

The big man looked askance at the bow and arrow.  Hoskins was against all guns, all hunting, and anything else that might pare back the wildlife.  If he had his way, all the animal species would be allowed to overpopulate and starve to death.

“Let me ask you something,” Pederson said, on the spur of the moment.  He never could resist pulling Hoskin’s chains.  “Have you been having trouble with the javelinas?”

A cloud passed over the banker’s face, and Pederson knew he’d hit a sore spot.

“Well, they were here before us.  Besides, I don’t believe in wasting water on lawns and gardens, so I got nothing to complain about.” 

There something in his voice.

“But?”

“They killed my cat!”

“Have you thought of getting a gun?”

“What?” the banker tried to act surprised, but Pederson saw the look of guilt in the man’s face.  The man had bought a gun.  Pederson would bet anything on it.

“They have as much right to existence on this land as we do,” Bart said, stubbornly.   “Maybe more so.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.  Meanwhile, be careful, Bart.  You hear?”

The banker nodded his head, and they exchanged a look -- man to man.

They passed each other without another word.

Pederson had more wood in the back of his pickup than he probably needed, but he had more money than he could ever spend.  The passenger seat and the compartment behind the front were filled with groceries.  For the first time in his life, Pederson had bought bottled water.  He’d tried to think of everything.

He shoved the bow and arrow on top of the rest.

It was probably all for nothing.  They’d call the state troopers in, or the National Guard.  A few more attacks and no one would be able to deny it.

But…there was that nagging feeling.  He’d had it the week before the stock market crashed.  He’d called his broker and told him -- no, ordered him, because he could tell the broker was going to lollygag -- to sell everything. 

The broker had called back a week later to thank him, because Pederson had been so adamant that the broker had sold a portion of his own portfolio.

The one thing Pederson had learned from his years in Silicon Valley -- trust your own instincts, even when everyone else disagreed with you, maybe especially when everyone disagreed with you.

He was probably traveling a little too fast on his way home.  He knew every turn in the road, every bump.  But what he didn’t expect was a javelina standing in the middle of the road.

If he’d had even one more second to think about, he would have run over the animal.  But his natural impulse took over and he swerved to miss the pig.  His right front tire went off the right side of the road, and seemed to want to jerk the pickup off the cliff.  He corrected.  He’d planned for this moment for years.  Most people overcorrected, sending them careening to the other side of the road, either smashing head on into coming traffic, or continuing down the other side, usually flipping the car.

So he tried to moderate his correction, but it was no use.  The momentums still sent him across the road.  Fortunately, the road was rarely traveled, so it was the bank on the other side that came barreling toward him.  He braced himself for impact.

The last thing he remembered was the air bag coming toward his head, as if in slow motion.  He was impossible he could have seen it, but he had a vision of the wood flying thrown the air over the pickup, impaling themselves on the sandy bank.

And then, darkness.

Tuskers. Chapter 10

Remember, rough draft, be kind.

Chapter 10

 “What’s happening?” Jenny said.  “I don’t understand!  What’s happening!”

The smoke from the Silverstein house was expanding into a mushroom cloud.

“Let’s get inside,” I said.  I got up and walked down the roof, for some reason no longer scared of falling off.  I was numb.  I jumped over the rail and then turned and helped my wife.

I was still favoring my right leg, but the pain didn’t seem as bad.  Mostly, I was just scared.  All my plans…going into town, getting a gun, blasting the javelinas away, law or no law.

But trained police officers had apparently just been taken down in seconds.

That wave I’d seen.  That wasn’t the original five pigs. Or even the dozen or so more I’d seen later.  That had appeared to be hundreds of them, hundreds of pigs on the rampage.  I’d need a machine gun, a flamethrower, a tank!

We had reached the kitchen when we heard to car pull up in front.

“Peter…” Jenny breathed in, and a cry of alarm came when she breathed out.  She ran for the door.

“Don’t open it!” I shouted.  There was steak knife lying on the counter.  I grabbed it and followed her.

She opened the door, for a moment I thought everything would be all right.  Peter was getting out of his SUV.  He had a small trailer on the back with a motorcycle, and I remembered something about his kids being active in motocross.

I saw something darting for my wife’s legs and without thinking, I dove.  I drove the knife into the side of the javelina, its tusks just inches from Jenny’s thighs.

“What the fuck?” I heard Peter say.  He was halfway up the walkway, looking at us in shock. 

Fortunately, there was only one ‘guard’ at the doorway.  (And even in the heat of the moment, I knew that it was planted there, on orders from Razorback, as crazy as that sounded.)

Peter was a good-looking guy.  Tall, dark and swarthy, just the kind of guy that Jenny would always say was handsome when she saw them on TV.  I wasn’t that dark, and not much swarthy, so I always wondered about that.  I was average height, gray thinning hair and beard.  Even when I was younger, my hair was a light brown.

Yet, I knew at that moment that there was nothing to be jealous about. 

“Run!” I shouted, but he just stood there with his mouth open.

“Peter!” Jenny screamed.  “Get inside!”

He started moving, but it was too late.  There must have been twenty of them, swarming from either end of the SUV.  But the one that got him was a smaller one that came from under the car.  It shot forward, and its tusks cut into the tendons at the back of Peter’s ankles, and he fell as if his legs had been cut off.

He tried to rise, but the other pigs reached him, and one of them went for his throat, and Peter tried to scream, but nothing came out.  Blood spurted from both sides of his neck, and his head seemed to almost flop forward.  Then it detached and rolled down the walkway.

Jenny was screaming, and I had to pull her back so that I could slam the door.  The pigs were so busy feeding, it was as if they didn’t even know we were there.

***

“I thought they could hurt us,” Jenny said.  “I never thought they could kill us.”

We were sitting at the kitchen table with drinks in our hands.  I’d poured us both a stiff one, pure vodka to the top of the glass, and Jenny was choking it down.  Her shaking hand was becoming steadier as her words became slurred.

I remembered stories of medieval kings or knights being gored to death by wild boars, and it had always seemed an ignominious way to die.  Now I realized there was nothing funny about it.

But I’d never heard of pigs swarming like this.  It was almost as if they were being directed, with tactical planning. 

Which was nuts.

“We’ll just stay inside until it blows over,” I said.  “We can’t be the only ones.”

She nodded.  I knew I get no more arguments from her about staying inside. 

It got dark, and it was eerily silent.  We turned on the TV for a few moments, but the blaring cheerfulness was so incongruous to our situation, that we quickly switched it off.

“We’ve got water, and a full pantry.  We’ll just stick it out,” I said, suspecting I was starting to repeat myself.  I always did get verbose when drunk.

Maybe not a good idea to get incapacitated, I thought.  I put down the glass with a full inch of vodka still on the bottom, proud of my restraint.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said.  She nodded and we stood up from the table and took each other’s hand, and walked up to our room together.  She spent extra time in the bathroom, and I could hear her crying, but decided she probably wanted to be alone to let it out.  That she’d put up a brave front when she was with me.

After she came out, I went in.  After I did my business, I happened to look in the mirror.  I was shocked by who stared out at me.  A thousand yard stare, is what I saw.  Shell shock.  My cheeks were gaunt, even though I hadn’t skipped a meal, there were dark shadows under my eyes. 

I slid open the drawer and pulled out my pill bottle.  I sometimes took half an alprazolam to sleep.  I thought about taking a couple, then closed the drawer again.

I went back to the bedroom.  The lights were out.  Jenny wasn’t moving, but I knew she wasn’t asleep.

The pigs are most active at night, came the thought.

As if in answer, I heard a crash from downstairs

Tuskers. Chapter 9

Third chapter posted today.  Look for the other ones.

As always, rough first draft. (be kind.)

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Chapter 9

“9-1-1…what is your emergency?”

“This is Barbara Weiss, 302 Bradford Court.  I was just attacked by three javelinas.”

There was silence on the other end.  Barbara had expected the operator to scoff, or at least sound skeptical.  She could hear whispering in the background and when the operator came back on, she sounded business like.

“We are advising people to stay indoors.”

Barbara hesitated at that.  Was there more than one incident?

“No problem.  I took care of it.”

“How did you do that, ma’am?”

“I blew their brains out.”

“Ma’am, it is illegal to fire your gun within the city limits.”

“Don’t tell your grandmother how to suck eggs,” Barbara said, without thinking.  It was her standard phrase whenever one of her young officers tried to act like knew more than she did.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.  Listen, I was a sheriff for over twenty years, and a deputy for ten years before that, and there isn’t a law in this country that doesn’t allow for self-defense.”

“I understand, Ma’am.  We’ll be sending an officer out as soon as possible to take a report.  In the meantime, we suggest that you stay indoors.”

“Will do,” Barbara started to say.

“And sheriff…” the operator broke in.  “Keep your weapon at hand.”

Barbara hung up slowly.  Something was going on.  She recognized the tone in the 9-1-1 operator’s voice.  The operator wasn’t allowed to say anything, but she’d managed to convey a lot with her choice of words.

Barbara went to the living room window and opened the curtains.  There, standing in what seemed to be rows, were at least fifty of the javelinas, looking back at her.

She closed the curtains, unnerved. She went to her pantry and pulled out the box of bullets and counted them.  She once figured it was more than enough for a lifetime, even for the occasional target practice.  But she’d just witnessed fifty pigs looking at her as if she was dinner. 

She took the box to the kitchen table and started reloading her empty clip.  She was going to have to restrain her training and fire only as much as she needed.  She’d killed her attackers with three bullets and then wasted the last twelve bullets in her clip making them deader than dead.   
Then she got up and went to her closet and put on her sensible clothes.  They felt comfortable and right. 

No more dresses.  No more high heels. 

The shirt had epaulets, because that had felt right when she purchased them.  If she had a couple of patches on them, they could’ve passed for a uniform.  She put on her old boots, and cinched her belt tight.  She clipped her holster on. 

That’s more like it.  No more pretending she was a lady.  Oh, she was a woman, all right.  These men she had ‘dated’ had no idea what they were missing.

But she could take care of herself.

She pulled out her cellphone and punched daughter’s number.  As usual, it was busy.  Sarah made dolls and unexpectedly had become quite the tycoon on the internet.  When her daughter had first married Jonathan Perkins and decided to become a housewife, Barbara hadn’t approved.  All that higher education, going to waste.  But she knew better than to say anything.

She needn't have worried.  Sarah was busier at home with her doll empire than she ever would have been working for a corporation.  And richer, too.  He daughter had maids and home teachers and everything she needed.  Barbara had even seen an article on her in the USA Today.

The problem with such success was that Sarah could rarely get away.  Even when Barbara visited, Sarah had little time for her despite her best efforts.  There was always some emergency or another. 

The other problem was that the phone was always busy.  Oh, Barbara could stay on the phone, until Sarah answered.  And her daughter would do her best to be pleasant, but there would be a stressful edge to her voice, implying she needed to get back to work.

The dutiful daughter would call back later, when she saw the missed call.  But the same thing would happen, and sometimes Barbara wouldn’t even answer.

She stared at Jeremy’s number for several minutes.  Then she took a deep breath and pushed the number.

“Hello?” it was a little girl’s voice.

“Hi, Emily!  This is your grandmother…

“Who?”

Barbara felt her heart sink, but she pushed on.

“Your grandmother…”

“Grandma Martha?”

“No, sweetie.  This is your Grandma Barbara.”

“Dad!”

“Emily, how are you?  Did you get the iPhone I sent?”

“Dad wouldn’t let me keep it,” came the little voice. 

“Oh.”

“Dad!  It’s Grandma Barbara!”

“Emily…” Barbara said, trying desperately to think of something to say to engage the little girl.  She knew so little.  Her son almost seemed to want to keep information away from her.

“Hello?  Mom?”

Barbara braced herself.  Conversations with her son always seemed awkward.  He’d become a defense attorney, mostly for death penalty cases.  He’d been raised a liberal, but he’d gone far beyond that.  Barbara had made the mistake of playing Devil’s Advocate to what she considered his extreme views, and as a result, Jeremy actually thought she was a conservative.  What else could a sheriff in the Wild West be?  Jeremy had left Prineville for college and never come back, except for short, begrudging visits.

“Is something wrong?” his deep voice demanded.

“No, Jeremy.  I just want to hear your voice.  I was so glad to speak to Emily.”

“Yeah…Listen, Mom.  Can I call you back tonight?  I’m in the middle of something.”

“Of course, Jeremy.  Call me back when you can. I’m always here.”

They hung up and she kicked herself.  ‘I’m always here.’  How pathetic. 

She went to the front of the house, drawing her Glock.  She threw open the door.  There were half a dozen of the javelinas rooting around the bare dirt and rocks.  She started blasting, catching three of the pigs by surprise and killing them.  Two of the others were winged as they ran, and the third got away completely.  As she pulled the clip and put in the other one with a practiced motion, the unharmed javelina turned and gave her a look that almost stopped her from finishing the motion.

It was a warning look.  You’ve messed with the wrong pig, the look said

She laughed, finished inserting the clip and raised her Glock.  But the pig had disappeared around the house.  She thought about pursuing, but decided not to without backup.  (You have no backup, came the thought.)

Instead, she went back to the living room and opened the curtains.  The pigs were gone. 

She pulled the armchair around to face the window and sat down to wait.

Tuskers. Chapter 8

Rough first draft. (be kind.)

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Chapter 8

As it happened, both Jenny and I climbed out onto the roof.   We had a small deck at the end of the second level hallway, which we never used but had seemed like a nice feature when we bought the house.  Unfortunately, the deck seemed to be in the path of some kind of natural wind tunnel so it was unpleasant to sit there for long.

But the railing was low, and we could get onto the roof from there.  We climbed up to the peak of the roof on all fours, and sat gingerly, trying to gain our balance, and looked to the east.

We couldn’t see anything but smoke now.  Not a sign of the Silverstein house.  From here we could also see Pederson’s old barn, and without the smoke we probably could have seen the Underwood’s.  We’d never met the latter couple, who were usually traveling around Europe and who kept to themselves when they were home.

“Barry…” My wife’s voice was low and worried.

“We’ll be OK,” I said, but then realized she was looking at something on the ground.  Just a few yards from the house there was a big hole in the side yard.  Split wires were visible from where we sat.

“Well, now we know why we couldn’t call out,” I said.

She nodded her head toward the spiral of smoke.  “Do you suppose?”

“Yeah, Carl had gas lines.  He was bragging about how much money he was saving last winter.  I thought he was kind of nuts, since it only gets cold around her for such a short time.”

“But wouldn’t gas lines be metal, or something?”

“Something pretty hard, I’d have to believe.  But, babe.  Did you see the damage to the outside of our front door?”

  When I’d been making my -- what had seemed to me -- slow motion escape from the pigs at the front steps, I’d seen heavy grooves in the paneling of our door.  The marks had appeared to be at least an inch deep. 

“That smoke is going to bring emergency vehicles,” Jenny said.  “Even if no one else  calls them.”

We stared at the smoke, contemplating it.  Then both of us seemed to have the same idea.

“We should…

“…signal them.”

We slid carefully down the roof on our butts, once scoot at a time, and climbed over the railing.

“I’ll check the kitchen,” she said, and hurried off. 

I limped to my den.  On the bookshelf near the door, I kept a flashlight tucked in the corner.  I reached for it, paused for a second to pray to whatever deity would listen, and flipped the switch.

There was light, but it was dim.  I shook the light, and it brightened for a moment, and then went even dimmer.

Shit.

Jenny was clambering up the stairs.  “Found it!” she said, excitedly.  She had the big light that we took camping.  It was supposed to be heavy duty.

“Do we have any extra batteries?” I asked worriedly.

“This ought to be strong enough,” she said. 

“It’s still pretty bright out.  I hope they can see us.”  By this time, we were hearing sirens, which were rapidly approaching.  I tried to distinguish between the alarms, wondering if there were any policemen coming.  Policemen with guns.

We climbed back on the roof.  We could see the red emergency vehicles rushing down the long road to the Silverstein’s.  Looked to be a two-alarm fire.  But then, two fire trucks was all the township owned.  I thought I saw the cherry top of a cop car, too.

“Do we have anything that will make noise?” I asked.

“I think I have an old coaching whistle from when our niece, Sherry, was in soccer.  I volunteered a couple of times.  I think it’s in the junk drawer.  Want me to get it?”

“Let’s try signaling with the flashlight first.”

“When do we do it?

The sirens had stopped, but the lights were still flashing.  Overhead, the pall of smoke was getting darker, as the water from the firemen’s hoses began hitting the flames.

“Let’s wait a few minutes.  They’re going to be too busy to be looking anywhere else.”

We sat close together, and I put my arm around her as I was getting more and more secure on our precarious perch.  It suddenly occurred to me that I was having fun…well, maybe not fun, but it was all very exciting.

I don’t normally look for excitement.  I’ve always said that if you try to do everything to eliminate risk, trouble will still find you.  So why go looking for it?

But this seemed to have awakened me out of a torpor I didn’t even know I was in.  The situation was dangerous, my head told me.  It was exciting, said my heart.  And my soul didn’t really believe that we’d be hurt, either Jenny or me.  We’d come out of it, we always did.

The smoke was really getting thick.  When Jenny coughed, I took my arm from her shoulders.  “I’m thinking maybe we should try now.”

Jenny didn’t immediately respond. 

“Are you sure?” she finally said.  “I mean, I don’t see any of the pigs around.  Maybe we can get to the car and just drive away.  We’ll look pretty silly when we tell them we’re trapped by…by javelinas.”

“Yeah, well let them deal with the beasts.  I don’t mind looking silly.”

She laughed.  “OK.  You’re right.  Who cares?”

She lowered the head of the light and turned it on.  “What’s the S.O.S. again?”

That brought me up short.  “Three short. Three long. Three short….I think.”

She started to flash.

“Wait!” I said, suddenly panicking.  “Maybe it’s three long, three short, three long.”

She started chuckling, but didn’t stop what she was doing.  “I think they’ll get the message either way.”

It seemed like she was doing it for hours, though it was probably only a few minutes.  I checked my watch.  It was a quarter to four o’clock.  If nothing else, we should probably save some of the battery life for when it got dark.  There would probably still be firemen around.

Of course, dark is when the javelinas really got active.

“My fingers are getting tired,” Jenny said.

“Let me do it for a while,” I said, but at the same moment, we heard the blare of a sirens.  Whoop, whoop, whoop!  Beep, beep, beep!  Whoop, whoop, whoop!

“I think they’ve got it,” I shouted.  I dared to stand up, there at the steepest part of the roof, and waved my arms and hooted at the top of my voice.  A vast relief went through me, and I realized then that I’d been more worried and frightened than I was willing to admit.

Whoop! Whoop!.....blaaaarch…blarrk, bl…

I sat down abruptly.  I could see what looked like a dark wave washing over the emergency vehicles.  I couldn’t make sense of it.  And then I heard the gunshots.  Just three or four loud cracks before they abruptly stopped.

And then, drifting from the Silverstein house, I heard screams.

Tuskers. Chapter 7

Rough first draft (be kind.)

Chapter 7

Hooking up the trailer with the motocross bike to his SUV just reminded Peter Gandry how much financial trouble he was in.  He owed money on the car, the bike, hell, even the trailer.

But the bike was the only thing that kept his fourteen year old son interested in hanging out with him, so he would do just about anything to keep it from being repossessed.  That would be too humiliating, and the last straw with Josiah, who already blamed him for the divorce.

He had two more meetings today, and then he could head for Phoenix to spend a few days with his son.  Besides, hauling the motorcycle around would look wholesome to the clients, like he was an outdoorsy kind of guy, and a good father.

Morales was waiting for him in Lucille’s Diner, at the back table, already eating his breakfast.  Peter decided to overlook the insult since he couldn’t afford breakfast anyway.   He was getting that desperate.  The last sale he’d made had been to the dyke sheriff from Oregon.  He was just thankful he hadn’t had to fuck her.

“Just coffee,” he said to Mary, the waitress.  He gave the cute girl his best smile.

He knew his most valuable sales attribute was his full head of black hair, his dark brown eyes and long eyelashes, his long lanky, cowboy body.  He covered his one weakness, a slightly receding chin, with a dark beard, cut long in the all the right places.

None of his charm worked on Morales, who was a hard case.  The Mex (he used to think Spic, but it had got him in big trouble with his Chamber of Commerce buddies when he’d let it slip into a joke once) drove a beat up old pickup and lived in a beat up old house, so Peter figured he needed the money.  But despite owning acres of prime land, he wouldn’t sell a single acre, no matter how much Peter offered.

He had a Hail Mary, last ditch plan.  He’d noticed how Morales eyes strayed and followed the shapely bodies of tall blondes.  In fact, he’d seen the Mex nearly drool at the sight of Jenny Hunter, one of the newcomers to town.  It so happened that the woman had inquired about a position in the Gandry Real Estate Company, and he nearly had her aboard.  (Now he wouldn’t mind fucking Jenny, even if she was twenty years older than him).

Her first job would be to work on Morales.

The money he was offering wasn’t his, sadly.  Bart Hoskins, the banker, had extended him credit for this one project only, and was keeping an eye on him so that he couldn’t divert it or siphon it off for his bills.

“I have thought of your offer,” Morales said, with a thick accent.  “I will sell you one acre of land.  One acre, to see what you do.”

The Mex shoved the map with the plots marked on it, and pointed to a piece of land very close to the river.  Peter started getting excited.  He figured it was probably a piece of shit property, but it was the first time Morales had made the slightest concession.

If he couldn’t swing Morales into selling a few dozen acres in the next several months, Peter was sunk.  Morales was one of two original landowners in the valley who still had big enough chunks of desirable land to create a subdivision.

Peter pulled out his checkbook with a flourish and wrote out the check right then and there.  Get Morales spending a little money, give him a taste of the good life, and all things were possible.

He stood up.  “You won’t regret it, Flaco,” he said.  “Can we meet again in a week?”

Morales nodded his head, “Sure, sure.”

“Good!  I’ll see you same time, same channel!”  He turned and walked out of the diner, conveniently forgetting to pay for his coffee.

***

Flaco finished his meal, feeling a little badly for the real estate agent.  He had no intention of selling the man any of his useful land.  The plot he’d just sold was one of those awkward pieces of land that was so angled and bordered by roads and natural features that it wasn’t really useful for anything.

He pocketed the check and waved at Mary. His credit was good all over town.  He may not look like he had much money, but he always paid his bills.

He also felt a little chagrined at his phony accent.  When he’d first met Peter Gandry, he’d used the accent as a joke, (his daughter thought it was hilarious), and then when the real estate agent had bought into it, he’d felt as though he needed to keep it up.

Truth was, he probably spoke better English than Gandry.  It killed Flaco that the people of this valley treated him like an immigrant when his family had lived here long before any of the Northerners had showed up.

He walked out to the car and saw a javelina under the shade of the tree.  When he was growing up, he rarely saw the skunk pigs.  When he did see one, they were usually running away.  This one was particularly big and bold.  Flaco was whistling as he unlocked his pickup, but when he looked into the eyes of the creature, he stopped mid-tune.

The yellow eyes seemed to be measuring him, as if wondering if he could take him down. 

Flaco crossed himself and got in the car quickly.  He was pulling out of the parking lot, when a pack of the javelinas blocked his way.  He honked, but they didn’t move.  He was ready to get out of the care and shoo them away.  Then one of them turned and looked at him.  Again, it was a shock.  Intelligence and malevolence radiated out of those eyes.  Was it the same pig?

He looked in the rear view mirror, and realized that the first pig was now just a couple yards behind the car.  If he had gotten out of the car, he could have been blind sighted.

He honked again, and then edge forward until the javelinas slowly, contemptuously, moved out the way.

  He drove home, deep in thought.  At the one stoplight in town, he pulled out the check.  It was free cash, and he wanted to do something frivolous with it.

He walked into his house, looking around first.  The pigs had scared him that much.

His daughter, Alicia, lived with him, along with his five your old grandson, Felix.  His son-in-law was in Afghanistan. 

“Pack your bags, daughter,” he said.  “I’m taking you to Hawaii.”

“What?” she laughed.  “It’s the middle of the school week.” 

Alicia taught third grade at the local school.

He waved her comment off as if it was no concern.  “You’ve just got the flu.  We’ll be back in a week.  Come on, you haven’t been on a vacation since Enrique left.  My treat.”

“You really mean it?  Felix too?”

“No, we’ll leave Felix here,” he said with a straight face.  “Of course I mean it!  We’re leaving first thing in the morning.”

He went to his office and closed the door.

He crossed himself again as he thought of the javelinas.  Those creatures hadn’t been normal.  They were possessed or something. 

Flaco thought something bad was about to happen to this town, and he wanted to be gone when it happened.  

Besides, he’d always wanted to try surfing.

***

Peter Gandry had one more meeting before picking up Jenny Hunter at 5:00.  As he drove down the street in front of Lucille’s Diner, he saw a group of javelinas crossing the road.

He speeded up and swerved, and caught one of them on the flank, sending it flying into the air.  He looked in the rearview mirror to see it land on its head, unmoving.  Then he took a survey of his surroundings to make sure no one saw what he did.

He hated the damn pigs.  They were going to be the death of the community someday, if word got out to the snowbirds about how destructive they were. 

Bart Hoskins was waiting for him at Earps, the more upscale restaurant at the base of the refurbished hotel in town.  The hotel was in trouble, he knew, but he’d been forced out of that deal early, which had turned out to be a lucky thing for him.  Fuck them.

Bart had also already ordered, and Peter felt the same weird mix of resentment and relief.

“How’s it going with Morales?” the banker said, without preamble.

“Great!  I bought an acre from him.”  He produced the check record and showed the banker the plot on the map.

“Useless,” Bart said, bluntly. “I know that plot.”

“Yeah, but the money softens up Morales for the next one.  Trust me, I know how it works.  I’ve got another plan in the works, too.”  He was thinking about the tall, sexy-for-all-her-age-blonde, Jenny Hunter. 

Bart just grunted.

“How’s it going with Pederson?” Peter asked, changing the subject.  Pederson was the other local landowner in the valley who had viable swathes of land.

“You can forget about that,” Bart said, waving his fork.  Dismissing it.

“Why?  The old guy must have huge property taxes, and he barely farms it.”

Bart put down his fork and knife and examined him.  “Well…I’m not supposed to say anything, and if you repeat this, I’ll deny it but…Lyle Pederson could buy and sell you and me twice over and not even blink.”

“Oh,” Peter said, deflated.  So it was down to the Mex, Flaco Morales, who showed no real enthusiasm of letting go of anything.

“Look, Peter.  I’ve been patient with your debts, because I know you’re trying hard.  But really, you’ve got to get Morales onboard in the next couple of weeks or I’m going to have to close you down.”

By habit, Peter almost wound up a spiel, and then he fell silent.  He was just too tired.  He wasn’t going to make it, he could see that now.  It was all going to shit. 

His five o’clock meeting with Jenny Hunter was his last chance.

He slipped out of the restaurant before the bill arrived.

The frenzy continues.

I'm rounding up on a first draft of Tuskers already. 

The last week has been nothing but a blur of writing.  16 hour days, maybe more.  (I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and wrote another couple hours when I realized that though the story was set in Arizona, I didn't have a Hispanic character.)

It may seem crazy to write a book so fast...

But here's the thing.   

I think it's the best thing I've done. 

The characters just popped into existence, the scenes came fully formed, and the words just kept flowing.

I think it was only a year or two ago that I was telling H. Bruce that I didn't think a book could be really written in just one month.

Well, I've blown that notion out of the water.

I am not going to mess with this story.  No extensive rewriting.  Just the copy-editing and normal editing that every story needs.

I've now got seven or eight viewpoint characters, and I've enjoyed interweaving their stories.   I think I may have learned a new technique.  Come up with the central POV character, propel his story forward, and then mix in secondary characters to add complexity and depth.

This has a kind of 70's disaster movie vibe, fueled by straight-ahead action plot.  Despite the outrageousness of the premise (killer pigs) I feel like like the unfolding of events is believable. 

I think if I was reading this book, I'd really like it. 

Tuskers. Chapter 6

This is the second chapter I've put on the blog this morning, so be sure and look for chapter 5.

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Chapter 6

Barbara Weiss clicked down the sidewalk to the Olive Garden.  Her high heels were killing her.  She tried to remember if she had ever worn high heels in all her working years, and couldn’t think of a time.  She’d been a sensible woman.

No more.  It was all-feminine, all the time.  Pastel colors, dresses instead of pants, high heels, plenty of make-up.  She would never look like the profile on her dating site, (a untouched but fluky picture of her, in her slim pose), but she was doing her best.

This was her fourth date, and she hoped at least that this one wouldn’t be cut short.  Each time she’d walked into the restaurant, and saw the hopeful look on her date’s face drop, and a polite veneer take its place.  Two out of three of the men had been polite enough at least to see the meal through.  One of them had gotten an “emergency” phone call within minutes, and adding insult to injury, had stuck her for the bill.

It was all right.  She could afford it.  She had a generous pension, double dipping both the county and state.  Besides, she was beginning to think she should offer to pay for at least half the meal.  Not the way she remembered it, but apparently it was the new way to doing things.

This time it was her turn to recoil.  The man was fat, nothing like his profile.  That would have been all right, but when he gave her a hug, he stunk.  A not-bathing-kind of stink, something that he could do something about if he cared.  If he stunk on a first date, she could only imagine how he’d be the rest of the time.

She stuck it out.  He was actually fairly interesting, but she got the distinct impression that he was hoarder, from his description of all his flea market purchases.  She let him peck her on the cheek and hurried away without a commitment to a second date.

That’s it, she thought. Four strikes and I’m out. 

She’d never much liked the idea, but so many of her Facebook friends had told her about their luck internet dating that she’d felt she had to give it a try.

Moving down the Arizona was looking like a mistake.  Oh, she loved her house.  She loved the views.  She liked the town and the people.  But she hated the fact that old woman far outnumbered old men.  She’d never been able to compete on that level.

She’d always been stocky.  Not fat, just solid, ‘built like a linebacker’ her Dad had said fondly, not knowing how much it hurt.  It was at the senior prom when she’d met Howard.  He was with someone who got drunk and belligerent, and Barbara in her take-charge way had taken the woman aside and talked her down.

While she was doing that, he own date wandered off to join his friends, none of which she knew, and she found herself standing and talking to Howard.  They’d hit it off from the start.  He was tall and strong, and maybe had an ugly mug but he was kind and patient and he loved her.

They’d had two children, both of whom had gone on to higher education and lived back east.

She’d had the best of it.  Her career, her marriage, her family, her friends.

Then Howard had died five years ago, and most of her friends had wandered off or passed away, and she was forced to retire by mandatory state and county guidelines.  She’d rattled around the big house for a few years, hoping for an occasional visit from Jeremy and Sarah.  Her kids had instead invited her to move back east, closer to the grandchildren.

Barbara had finally decided she needed to get her life going again.  She needed a change.  She moved to Arizona.

She walked out of the Olive Garden and the blast of heat almost melted her on the spot.  Her makeup seemed to be drying into a solid mask on her face. She wanted to cry, but she raised her chin and marched to her car.  She couldn’t remember when the last time she had cried.  One long cry when Howard died, and before that…?  Never?

She tore off her high heels and gripped the steering wheel.

She drove home slowly, taking the long route, unwilling to sit in her big living room by herself, watching TV or reading a book.

Alone.

After meandering about, driving down roads she’d never seen before, she pulled up to her driveway and pushed the garage door opener.  She sat there idling, thinking about nothing.  She glanced out at her front yard.  She’d decided when she’d moved her not to put in a lawn or a garden, conscious of how much water it would waste. 

She smiled to herself.  Her old coworkers would have laughed at the idea of her being an environmentalist, but she’d always been secret liberal, despite her occupation.  In fact, the only social activity she enjoyed down here in Arizona was the group of other liberals she’d found, who had afternoon barbecues and patio parties once a week.  Jenny and Barry Hunter, Stacy and Cameron Stevenson, the Silberstein’s, the Foster’s, and old Billy Patterson, who’d been making eyes at her, but was so old she hadn’t seriously considered him.

Maybe time to reconsider, she thought.  I think I just need a companion, and I’m not going to be particularly picky about it.  Except…they couldn’t stink.

She pulled car into the garage, and got out, and walked around the back of the car to get the door into the house.  She passed briefly into the sunlight, and saw the three pigs approaching.  Ordinarily, she’d have ignored them.  She’d heard that her neighbors were having trouble with the javelinas, especially Barry Hunter who brought the subject up at nearly every meeting of the Bleeding Hearts Club.  But because she didn’t have any plants to attract the critters, so she hadn’t seen them much.

They were a new species to her.  Central Oregon didn’t have them.  They kind of fascinated her in their boldness.

These three were being especially bold.  They were getting closer and closer.  She looked into the eyes of the leading pig. 

She didn’t hesitate.  She reached into her purse and pulled out her Glock and started firing.  Her first three bullets hit each of the pigs square in the head, but she emptied the clip as she was trained and grabbed the second clip and reloaded.  She held the gun out, looking for movement. 

Then Barbara Weiss, the Sheriff of Crook County in Central Oregon for over twenty years, went to her doorway and pushed to button to close the garage door.

Tuskers. Chapter 5

This book is just pouring out of me.   I've never written this fast, and I'm a fast writer.  Don't know what's come over me.  I love this book, though I'm in the middle of it and probably not very objective.

I've added new characters, so instead of a novella, it's becoming a real book.

I'm going to put a couple of chapters a day on the blog now.

I hope you guys are enjoying reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

(Remember: this is a raw first draft, so give me a break...)

NOTE:  This is actually Chapter 4 in the book now, and yesterdays chapter is Chapter 5, but they are in close enough proximity to just keep going...)

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Chapter 5

Lyle Pederson examined the pig-sized hole in the side of his barn.  The critters were getting bolder and more aggressive with every day.  And there were more of them.

When he was growing up in this valley, weeks and months could go by without seeing a javelina.  They stayed higher up, rooting around the foothills, where there was more forage.

Humans had brought the javelinas down to the valley floor.  Free, unprotected garbage.  Gardens with plump green shoots and tasty flowers.  The population had exploded.  He’d been warning Hamilton about the problem for years, but he could tell the Animal Control officer just thought he was an old crank.

Pederson didn’t think he was a crank, but he had to admit he probably looked like one.  Old and scrawny, missing a few teeth, a tobacco chaw in his cheek most of the time.  Wild and at the same time sparse white hair, and unshaven chin.

He also had a Masters in Engineering from Stanford, and had spent a couple of decades in Silicon Valley, but he was too proud to announce his bonafides.

So he’d set about to document the numbers of skunk pigs.  He’d built an observation tower on top of his barn with a telescope and started counting.  And what he found had amazed him.  The pigs moved around, almost as if they knew where Hamilton was going to be next.  They’d be sparse when he was around, and the minute he left an area, they’d flood back in.

Then Pederson had noticed that each of the packs had a leader, but most intriguingly, they all seemed to report to one giant pig, who Pederson thought of as the “Leader.”

He crawled into the hole in the side of his barn and found himself in the small area behind the hay bales -- which was there to keep the heat from building and possibly bursting the walls into flames.  There was pig shit, and it looked like the javelinas were spending part of their day there.

Pederson sighed and crawled back out.  He had lain in a pile of lumber in back of the barn and over the last few weeks, he was reinforcing the flimsier portions of the barn.  He grabbed a couple of two by fours and hammer and nails and closed the hole.  He stepped back, then decided to do the entire side in two by fours, up to about five feet.

He’d have to go to town and get more wood.

He was the lumber supply store’s best customer.  What no one knew was that his little foray into Silicon Valley had made him rich.  Filthy rich.  He was tempted a few times to go and flash his wealth at a few of the county officials and get Hamilton replaced by someone a little more savvy.

But it was against his principles.  He lived by a code, and using money to get his way was against his code.

The only time he used his money was for his twice a year jaunts to the Caribbean.  He’d clean himself up, put on his nice clothes, and flash his money.  He was under no illusions that there was any other way to get the good-looking guys down there to pay any attention to him.

But here in the valley, he was incognito, in more ways than one.

Besides, Hamilton was a good man.  It was just that the pigs were outsmarting him.

When Pederson had reinforced the barn the best he could with the available lumber, he got up and went back to the wide doors at the entrance of the barn.  The javelinas knew about Pederson and so far didn’t dare the frontal approach.  Next to the door was a shotgun loaded with buckshot.  The pigs weren’t the only ones keeping track of Hamilton’s comings and goings, and Pederson wasn’t shy about using the shotgun whenever he saw a javelina on his property.

It would make him a pariah among the retirees if they knew.  Hell, some of them were so stupid, they were actually feeding the pigs.   But he didn’t really care what the newcomers thought.  He wasn’t part of them.  He was the last of the old-timers.  All the rest of the pioneer families had sold out and moved away, up north where it was green.  The opposite of snowbirds.

He went to the ham radio set on a small desk near the entrance.  He could’ve just emailed his friends Emerson, Johnson and Hawkins, but they all preferred ham radio, if nothing else, just to keep in practice.

He hadn’t been able to raise Emerson for over a day.  Which was unusual, since Emerson was wheelchair bound and didn’t go far from the house.  He tried again, still nothing.  Even more alarming, Johnson wasn’t answering either.  But before they’d signed off last, they had reported some disturbing things.

There was a spiral staircase near the center of the barn (it had cost a fortune to buy, to have shipped to the farm, and to install.)  He climbed the staircase, taking pleasure in its beauty, and emerged into his observation tower. 

From here he could see most of the valley.

Back in his childhood, this valley had been mostly empty.  His parent’s farm was situated in a prime location, near the creeks, with the least rocky pastures.

But the subdivisions that had popped in his absence didn’t care about any of that.  They just bulldozed the boulders, piped in the water.  Just as long as there were views of the mountains, they didn’t care about the same practicalities that generations of farmers had.

His dad had sold about half the ranch to these developers, making Pederson even richer than he was before, which was already way too much for him to ever spend.

Most of the old-timers were upset by the newcomers, the snowbirds, the retirees from up north and back east.  They wanted the subdivisions stopped.  But Pederson had judged that the onslaught was coming, was unstoppable, and when they had proposed a subdivision with five acre lots, he’d been all for it -- because the alternative might have been one of those types of developments where they packed the houses in.

Then later, he’d fought to keep the lots large, even if it was environmentally dubious.  He figured he’d earned the right to maintain his privacy.  But the people kept coming, and in the next county over, they had piled one subdivision on top of another.

The consequence was that any of the wildlife that couldn’t adjust to the humans had been wiped out, and those animals that could adapt experienced population explosions.

He scanned the foothills with his telescope, knowing all the places the javelinas spent the hot summer afternoons.  The Leader was usually at one of these spots, surrounded by his followers.  Lately, Pederson had noticed that the Leader had created a cadre of lieutenants, who alarmingly, were displaying the same quantum leap in intelligence.  His offspring? Pederson wondered.

He’d been meaning to contact his old friend from Stanford, Professor Harker, Nobel Laureate, and ask him about the possibility of such a thing happening.  But…though he prided himself on his independence, he was still worried Sam would think he was going senile.

Not more of that, Pederson decided.  It was time to contact the good professor.

He caught a movement as he was traversing the hills, and settled the scope on a pair of mountain bikers.  It was the Stevenson’s, one for first couples to move into the valley, who were from Washington state.  Pederson had made it his business to know who all his neighbors where, though most of them probably couldn’t tell who lived two houses over.

The Cameron and Stacy had been busy for years building their on private bike trail, which was illegal of course, but Pederson kind of admired their industriousness.  The Stevenson’s were approaching one of the hidden hollows where the javelinas spent the days. He kept the telescope on the couple, curious to see what would happen.

The pigs came squirting out on to the trail, catching the Cameron’s front tire, and he went head over heels over the handlebars.  His wife crashed into his now unoccupied bike.  Once they were on the ground, the javelinas swarmed over them, and Pederson thought he saw arms and legs thrashing for a short time, and then the only movement was from the pigs, who were feeding as if they were at a trough.

“Holy shit,” he muttered.  He reached for his phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1…what’s your emergency?”

“This is Lyle Pederson, 21 Pederson Road.  I just saw a couple of mountain bikers get attacked by javelinas, up on Burnt butte.

“A cougar attack?”

“No, dammit.  Skunk pigs.”

“Skunk pigs?”

“Javelinas, you idiot.”

“Please calm down, sir.  Please describe exactly what you saw.”

“It saw Stacy and Cameron Stevenson bike riding.  They were attack by a group of javelinas.”

“Are they hurt?”

Pederson almost hung up.  He took a deep breath. 

“They aren’t moving…”

“Are you nearby?”

“No, I saw them on my telescope,” Pederson said.  Even as he said it, he realized how it sounded.  Crazy old coot with a telescope spying on his neighbors.  Well, it was true, even if it wasn’t for nefarious reasons.

“Excuse me, I thought I just called 9-1-1, for emergencies.  I didn’t think I called Nitwit Central.”

“There is no call for that, sir.”

“Just get someone up to Burnt Butte, about halfway up.  They’ll find a bike trail.  Hurry.”

He hung up.

He went back to the telescope.  The pigs had dispersed.  There was no sign of the Stevenson’s, just the two upended bikes.

Guess it doesn’t matter, he thought.  It’s too late.

He went down spiral staircase, left the barn, being careful to close the big doors behind him.  He got in his biggest pickup, and started toward town.  Time to load up with as much lumber as he could fit.  Make the barn a fortress.  He didn’t know how he knew a war was coming -- but it came from the same place in his brain that had made him rich, seeing connections, seeing patterns.

He’d learned to trust those instincts.   Now he needed to figure out how to overcome his own natural crustiness and find a believable way to warn his neighbors.

A writing frenzy.

Wow.

I think yesterday was the most productive day I've ever had.  I wrote from waking until bedtime.  The most words I've ever written in one day -- and I liked all the words.

Tuskers is a very straightforward story.  Other than the first set-up chapter, there is only one POV, first person.  There are no flashbacks, no sidetrips.  Everything is in real time.

Because I'm not worried about length, I'm able to have the action come in fast sequence.  To crank up the danger little by little in a believable way.

It appears to me that this will be about 20 to 30K words, though I won't know until I'm done.  It will be as long as it will be.

Now...I may just go ahead and add other viewpoint characters and make it a real book.  Just as long as their stories are just as straightforward and action packed as Barry Hunter's is.

I think I've made the whole thing believable.  Which, when you're talking about Porkopolype, or Hamagedden, you wouldn't think would be very easy.  But really, we are so dependent on our cars, phones, and internet -- that if you take those out, along with electricity and water -- you make it pretty tough.

No reason extra smart pigs can't dig up the wires and pipes and undermine the cell towers ect.  Heh.

The biggest thing is that I think it is fun, and interesting, and even though there are only two characters so far, I like both of them and their relationship.

Linda is gone for the weekend -- so I have a chance to be very productive over the next three days.  I'm excited to see where this story is going.

Tuskers. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I tried to get up, but the pain was so excruciating that I fell back with a cry.  My wife’s anger instantly turned to concern.

“Let me see that,” she said, getting down on her hands and knees, her blue pants getting stained by the blood on the floor.  She winced when she saw the gash, which ran along the middle of the foot.  “We need to clean that off.  Can you make it to the bathroom?”

“Sure,” I said.  I got up.  I hopped my way, putting just the slightest bit of pressure on the tip of my foot, with one hand on the wall.  About halfway there, Jenny put her shoulder under my arm and I made it the rest of the way.

I sat on the toilet while Jenny rooted around in the cabinet for antibacterial lotion and bandages.  I watched her furrowed face.  If I blurred my eyes just slightly, she still looked like the twenty-year-old girl I’d met my junior year in college.  A true blonde, with aristocratic features and bearing, tall and thin.  But I didn’t need to blur my eyes, for the added wrinkles and lines only made her lovelier in my eyes.

I wondered if she was happy, if she liked living in Arizona.  But even as I thought it, I realized that she’d been hinting in small ways that she didn’t like it.  I’d just willfully ignored the signals.

“You want to go for a long vacation to Philly?” I asked.

“Maybe later in the summer,” she said, after a slight hesitation.  “I’ve got some things I need to do.”

“What kind of things?” Jesus…that sounded like the whining of a kid.   “I thought that’s why we came down here…so we wouldn’t have things we need to do.”

“Do you mind if we talk about it later?” She asked, as she took a wet towel and started washing the wound.

I managed not to groan, both from the pain and from that strange hesitation, which I instinctively sensed meant trouble.

“What are we going to do about getting out of the house?” she asked.  “About letting people know?”

“Hamilton’s supposed to call me later this afternoon.”

She snorted.  “Since when has Hamilton ever voluntarily called you, honey?  I think he’s on the verge of taking a restraining order out on you.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty much every day.”

“Oh, come on, babe.  It’s his job.”

She shook her head.  “I wouldn’t be counting on a call.”

We fell silent.  We didn’t own a gun.  When I’d told Hamilton about the idea of maybe shooting a few of the pigs, or at least firing in the air to warn them off, he’d told me sternly it was against the law to fire off a gun in city limits.  And to tell the truth, I didn’t want a gun in the house.  They gave me the willies.

“What if I use a bow and arrow?” I’d asked.

“Still illegal,” Hamilton had been firm.  “I find you are killing off the wildlife without a permit and so help me, I’ll throw your ass in jail.”

“That seems so unfair!” I’d protested.  “Am I supposed to just let these critters eat my garden?  Destroy my lawn?  Wreck all my furniture?”

Hamilton had looked as though he wanted to say something he would regret. 

“You moved here, Barry.  The wildlife was here before you.  If you don’t like it…you can always move.”

I’d almost reported the S.O.B. over that, then realized the poor guy was under a lot of stress.  I doubted I was the only newcomer who was complaining.  And much as I hated to admit it, he had a point.

So I’d tried other things.  The next day, I piled a bunch of stones near the patio and when the javelinas came through, I started throwing them.  I missed, mostly.  But even when I hit one of them full on the flank, with a loud thud, the pig had just sort of grunted and looked at me, as if to say, ‘That all you got, buddy?’

I considered poison, but didn’t have any in the house and never got around to making the trip to town to buy some.  Besides, I didn’t want to poison all the squirrels and marmots and other innocent critters.

The thing that worked the best, at least at first, was banging on the metal lid of a garbage can.  But after only a few days, the skunk pigs just ignored it.

And now this.  ‘Man eating pigs,’ Jenny had joked, but damned if I didn’t wonder.

Now I said, “The pigs can’t stick around forever.  They have other gardens to rape, pillage and plunder.”

I knew from talking to my neighbors at the pool hall, they were all having trouble with the vermin.  Especially my nearest neighbor, Carl Silverstein.  He was so fed up, he was building his own fence, but wasn’t quite done yet.

A vague plan started formulating in my head.  All four sides of our house had windows on the ground floor.  If I ran from room to room, I could check all of them within a few seconds, while Jenny kept an eye on the front.   If the coast was clear, I could make a run for the car.

Great plan, except I couldn’t run. 

“Babe,” I ventured.

“Yes?” she recognized the tone, but didn’t say anything.  For once, she seemed willing to listen to one of my schemes.

“Would you be willing to get out on the roof?  Climb to the top and check out the surroundings?  When the coast is clear, you can give me a signal, and I’ll make a run for the car.”

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.  “Climb on the roof…”

“Well, remember, we’ve done it before,” I said.  When we’d bought the house, we’d agreed, in case of a fire, to check to see if it was possible to get out of the upstairs master bedroom by way of the window.  We hadn’t actually jumped off the roof, but agreed that we could if we had to.

She nodded.  “That’s not actually a bad plan.  But you should be the one to get on the roof, and I should be the one to make a run for it.  Seeing as how you can’t run.”

I hadn’t thought of that.  She was right.  But I still didn’t think she was scared enough.  She didn’t really deep down believe we were in real danger.

But I did.  Because I’d looked into Razorback’s eyes.

“But we don’t need to do that,” she said, dismissing the plan.  “Peter is coming by this afternoon to take me to dinner.”

“Peter?” I said.  A great dread had filled me at her words.  “Out to dinner?”  A day before and I probably would have ignored it.  No doubt planning for one of her benefit events, I would have thought.  I had a vague recollection of her telling me about someone named Peter, who was a local real estate agent.

“I told you about it,” she said.  “The neighborhood association is getting together to appeal one of the rules.  You know, the one about not allowing hanging laundry outside.”

“Hanging laundry.”  Jesus, I thought.  I’ve been blind.  My wife could care less about the hanging laundry outside.  Hell, I did the laundry in this house.

“What’s going on, Jenny?”

“What do you mean?” She sounded so innocent, I knew I was on to something.

“Go ahead and tell me, babe.  Not knowing is killing me.”

She stopped fussing around putting away the medicines and cleaning the sink, and turned and looked at me with a heartbreakingly serious look on her face.  She sat on the edge of the bathtub and took my hands in hers.  I nearly teared up.  I couldn’t bear to hear what I was about to hear, but I couldn’t stand not knowing either.

“I want to go back to work,” she said.

“What?”

“Peter has offered me a job as a real estate agent.  I’ve already passed the exams and everything.”

Relief and confusion washed over me.  I was having a hard time processing what she was telling me.  All I knew was that she hadn’t told me she was having an affair.

“Did you think I was seeing someone?” she cried.  She leaned forward and put her arms around me.  “I’d never do that, honey.  I love you so much.”

I did tear up at that, but managed to wipe my eyes before she let go of me and could see.

“I, uh…I thought we wanted to just relax?” I stuttered.

“So did I, at first.  But, honey.  I’m bored out of my skull.”

I just laughed.  I should have known.  I was the one who had always been home, always on my own.  She’d always worked in places surrounded by people.  Retirement really wasn’t that much of a change for me, but for her…

“I understand,” I said. 

“I can work as little or as much as I want,” she said, quickly, rushing her words as if she had thought it all out and had rehearsed the explanation.  “I’ll have flexible hours.  We won’t have to stop anything we’re doing…or no doing.”

I laughed again.  “I get it.  Sure.  If it will keep you happy, I’m all for it.”

She lightened up at that, and sprang up.  “I’ve got to call Peter, tell him the news….oh…”

Yeah, that brought us down to earth again.  The pigs had her phone. But suddenly it seemed like a minor problem to me.  Why had I been so worried about it before?  It was just a bunch of pigs.  Fuck them.

“When is Peter coming by?”

She reached into her pockets, looking for her phone to check the time.  Then stopped, flustered.

“Good thing I’m such a primitive that I still wear a watch,” I said.  “It’s 3:30.”

“So he’ll be by around fivish, I think he said.”

We got up.  I’m not sure what we intended to do for the next hour and a half.  I know what I wanted to do for the next hour and half…but it was not to be.

The entire house shook, and we both nearly lost our footing.  I caught Jenny before she fell backward into the bathtub.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked, swearing for the second time that day, a new world record.

We ran to the living room, and looked out the big picture window.  Just on the horizon, was our nearest neighbors, the Silberstein’s.  We could just see the roof of their house.

Only we couldn’t.  Not any longer.  Instead of a roof, there was a fireball, with smoke curling high into the air.

Tuskers. Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

Jenny brushed past me, a look of annoyance on her face that said ‘It’s all your fault.’

She slipped on the bloody footprints I’d left on the tiles.  I caught her just in time, stabilized her against the wall.  Nice and cozy.  I looked into her face, expecting a welcoming look, I guess.  Maybe even a quick kiss.  How long since we’d just hugged just for the hell of it?

She pushed me away.  It was subtle, but no doubt it was a rejection.  I saw the reason for her clumsiness.  She was wearing high heels.  What she used to call her ‘Fuck me shoes.’ Why was she wearing high heels?

“You know we’re retired, right?” I said, jokingly.  “You don’t have to wear high heels anymore?”

A strange look came over her face and she glanced away.  “Just because we’re retired doesn’t mean we have to let ourselves go.” 

She looked back at me, not at my face, but at my belly, which I immediately sucked in.  I’d gotten on the scales that morning and for the first time in my life, I’d topped 200 pounds.

Now that I was noticing, she was wearing her nicest outfit.  Her powder blue pantsuit and pearl necklace, with fresh nails and hair.  I realized I had no idea where she’d spent the morning.  Where had she been, anyway?  She had her own friends, an almost separate life, and that was OK.  It had always been OK up in Bend, where we’d lived for the last thirty years.  She had all her work friends, while I stayed home mostly, doing promotional writing.  I’d been itching to get out of that overly touristy town -- which had been a nice cozy town when we first moved there -- for years now.  We’d had to wait until she retired and got her full pension.

She hadn’t really wanted to move to Arizona.  She’d wanted to go back to Philadelphia, where most of her family lived.  But I’d had enough of the cold climates.  I’d thought she was as OK with it as I was.

“Where were you today?” I asked, as if just casually interested.

She ignored my question. “Why did you yell at me like that!  They were just javelinas.  You had me all freaked out.  You made me over-react, drop the groceries.”

“Jesus, Jenny,” I exclaimed.  “Didn’t you see them?  They were out for blood.”

She looked down at my bleeding foot and frowned.

“How did that happen?”

“I kicked the pig away from the door.  It was trying to get in.”

“Trying to get in,” she repeated, as if I’d just said Martians had landed in the back yard.

“I caught my foot on its tusk.”

“Yeah, that happens when you kick a pig in the face,” she said dryly.  She walked away from me, shaking her head.  She went to the cabinet and poured herself a glass of red wine.  “As soon as I cool down, I’m going out and getting those groceries.  And if those javelinas come near me, I’ll throw a can of beans at them.”

“You can’t do that, Jenny.  They’re dangerous.”

She took a sip of wine, examining me.  I was getting the fish eyes; the skeptical look she gave me when she thought I was being silly.

“I’ll be sure to watch out for the man-eating pigs.”

“I’m serious, Jenny.  These animals aren’t acting normal.  They’ve got rabies or something.”  I thought it was something worse than that, like these were mutant pigs.  Hybrids or something.  But the rabies suggestion would at least sound realistic to Jenny.

“I’m going to call Hamilton,” I said.  I went over to the wall phone and picked up the receiver.  I was already dialing (appreciating as I did that I had Hamilton’s number memorized, and that probably wasn’t a good thing) before I realized there was no dial tone.

I slammed the phone down.  “Let me borrow your cellphone.”

“Where’s yours?”

I flushed.  I’d lost it weeks ago, I wasn’t even sure when.  I never used the damn thing anyway, and the only reason I had it was because Jenny bought it for me.

“I can’t find it.”

She rolled her eyes.  Then a look of puzzlement came over her.  “I…just remembered,” she said.  “I put my purse in one of the bags so I could carry everything in.  It’s outside.  I’ll go get it.”  She started walking to the hallway.

“Don’t, Jenny!” I said. 

She kept going.

“Jenny, just don’t!” I shouted.   “I mean it!”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she said, as she opened the door.  She was on the top step before I could stop her.

I ran after her, the pain in my foot stabbing me with every step.  I reached her as she was on the bottom step and only a few feet from the burst grocery bags.  The food was spread out all over the concrete walk. Cans had rolled to the edge of the lawn and against the garden. Eggs shells and breadcrumbs and broken boxes of cereal.  The pigs had pretty much consumed everything they could get at.

There in the middle of baking egg yolk was her little black garnet studded purse.  Her dress purse, I realized, wondering again why she was so gussied up.  I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach.  Or rather, the fear I was feeling overwhelmed it. 

“Hurry,” I hissed.

“Oh, hush.  Pick up the groceries.”

She started to bend over, and then froze.

Coming around the corner of the house, the javelina was running at full speed.  There was no mistaking its intent.

I had a can of food in my hand.  Jenny’s suggestion of throwing a can at the pigs had somehow penetrated, and I’d picked one up almost without realizing it.   

 I threw it at the javelina as hard as I could.

I was always terrible at baseball (all sports for that matter) but some divine providence guided my hand and the can hit the pig right on the snout.  It tumbled to one side, slamming up against the house.

Thank god it wasn’t Razorback, I thought to myself.  He probably would have shrugged off the strike and kept coming.

Jenny was already past me, running for the door.  The pig was still rolling in the garden dirt, trying to get to its feet.  But around the corner came the other four animals, led by the Razorback.  Then, as if that wasn’t alarming enough, another half dozen of the javelinas followed.

I staggered up the steps, feeling as if I was moving in slow motion.  Like one of those dreams where your legs just don’t work.  My wife’s hand reached out of the doorway and grabbed my hand and wrenched me inside.  I stumbled in and fell as I heard the door slam behind me.

I expected a thud as the pigs hit the door.  There was silence for a moment, then a high screeching sound as something sharp scraped against the wooden surface of the door and into the metal beneath.

My wife was standing over me.  Her expression wasn’t of fear, which I expected.  

 Instead, she was glaring at me in profound disgust.

“Whatever did you do to make them so angry?” she said.

Tuskers. Chapter 2.

Going ahead and writing my man versus pig story.

It is going to be a pretty straightforward survival story.  Not a lot of secondary characters.  Just a slowly disintegrating situation.

I doubt it will be very long.  Longer than a short story, shorter than a novel.

Just going to have fun with it.

Remember -- this is rough draft.

I guess my philosophy on writing is:  Don't agonize over it, just write it.




-

Chapter 2

After Hamilton left, I put the lawn fixtures back together as best I could.  I’d left them upended all morning because I wanted that useless Animal Control officer to see the full extent of the damage.  It felt good to put everything back in place, even if I had to prop up the birdfeeder posts with rocks and wrenched my back a little putting the concrete bird bath upright.

I eased into my favorite chair -- a nice padded chair under the eaves.  If the rains rotted it, I would just buy another one.  All well and good to have all weather lawn furniture but they are damned uncomfortable on my old man butt.  I poured myself a drink and closed my eyes and basked in the heat for a while.

When I opened my eyes, they landed on the sign I’d just hung from the patio roof a couple of days before: “The Hunter Hacienda.”  The letters were burned into the wood with an old fashioned magnifying glass by a guy who had a booth down at the weekend festivals in town. It had brought back memories of summer camps, and making leather lanyards and signs and other folksy things.  He’d done it in a matter of minutes, with a practiced ease that right then and there made me want to take up some kind of handicraft in my dufferhood.

I am firmly in the old duffer camp.  I used to wonder about people who’d watch Lawrence Welk or play golf all the time.  Did they know they were deeply uncool?

Now that I’m the same age, I have the answer.  They know they’re uncool -- and they don’t give a damn.

A simple condo, someone else mowing the lawns, a pool nearby to cool off with a little noodling, a clubhouse to play cards or billiards, a pickle ball court.  I fully embrace my dufferhood. 

My wife, Jenny, she’s the social one.  Always has been.  Without her, I’d be one of those grumpy guys you see floating around, who don’t join any of the activities.  She’s my intrepid scout, finding compatible couples to test, and we’ve developed a regular group, who get together every afternoon and talk politics.

We may reside in Red State Arizona, but the people in our group are mostly good old-fashioned liberals.  No doubt other groups are meeting on other patios, and are full of new-fashioned idiotic conservatives, but again -- I don’t give a damn.

Every afternoon I’ll sit on the back patio and drink vodka gimlets and wonder how I got so lucky.  My wife joins me about half the time, but she’s developed her own circle of friends outside our couple’s circle of friends, and I don’t mind.  I like being alone.  Always have.

I get lots of feedback on Facebook.  Keep up with the people back in the town I’d spent my entire career in, but which was way too cold and trendy for my tastes.  I can’t seem to completely let go of the Facebook thing.  Spend way too much time on it.

But there isn’t any reason to worry about it.  It’s an ideal existence, as far as I’m concerned.

Except for the damn javelinas. 

Who’d have thought I’d spend my retirement at war with pigs?

“They aren’t pigs,” I can hear Officer Hamilton saying.  “They are peccaries, an entirely different family.”

“Look like pigs to me,” I say, just teasing him.

“Well, they are in the same suborder as pigs.  But different animals.”

“Grunts like a pigs, smells like a pig, it’s a pig.”

Hamilton gave up, just shrugging his shoulders. 

The brush at the edge of my lawn stirred, and five large javelinas burst out into my backyard.  They looked as if they were looking for a fight.  Something made me stand up and edge for the door.  I slid the door halfway closed and stood at the entrance and watched them.

Their leader came forward by itself.  It didn’t take his its off me.  It was a casual and yet threatening approach.  When it was ten feet away, I closed the door until only my head was poking out.

There had been clouds covering the sun when they first trotted into view.  Now the sun came out, and I could see it glancing off the pig’s eyes.

I winced, and a cold chill came over me.

Then it started clashing its teeth.  I’d heard this sound before, as the herds of javelinas rooted about.  They were knocking their tusks together.

“Keeps their tusks sharp,” I can hear Hamilton’s voice.  “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Well, I was alarmed.  Scared, actually. 

This javelina was huge.  I was close enough to him to see that his tusks curved slightly, which was unusual.  Most javelinas have straight tusks.  This pig looked more like a wild boar, a razorback. 

The pig’s eyes were examining me, measuring the distance, as if trying to figure out if he could get to me before I closed the door.

Something impelled me to start sliding it the rest of the way closed.

The pig shot forward so fast he seemed a blur.  Its snout caught the last four inches of the opening, and it pushed it open another inch before I started countering its frantic efforts.  It huffled, almost growled, but again I was transfixed by the yellow eyes.  A murderous rage, and cunning intelligence radiated from the creature.  A stink filled the house.

“Scent glands,” Hamilton explained.  “It’s how they mark their territory.  They rub it on each other, too.  Which is why they stink.”

Some primitive primate instinct took over me at that moment, and I roared out a strange warlike cry that I didn’t know I had in me and kicked the snout of the creature with the bottom of my slippers.  I felt the tusks cut into the soft sole, and a flashing pain, but the javelina pulled away and I slammed the door all the way shut and locked it for good measure.

For a few moments the two of us stared at each other.

I understood.  This was to be a fight to the death.

Just then I heard my wife pulling up in the front driveway.  I saw that the javelina heard too, and it turned and ran back to his fellows, and they seemed to converse.

I turned and ran for the front door.  My foot stung with every step but I ignored it.  I slid the last few feet to the door, slamming into it, and threw it open.  My wife was halfway between the car and the door, cradling paper shopping bags in each arm.

“Hurry!” I shouted.  “Get inside!”

To her credit, she picked up the pace.  I could see her forming the question.

“No time!” I shouted again.  “Run!”

I saw a flash of motion to the left side of the house and the five javelinas came running around the corner, moving as a solid wave.  Jenny saw them coming.

She dropped the bags and sprang forward and into the hallway.  I slammed the door, just as a loud thump struck the outside of it.

There is a narrow window running down the length of the door and I peered outward.  Four of the pigs were rooting through the dropped groceries.

But the big one was there, staring back just inches away.  It shook itself all over, as if saying, “Got you sucker.” 

Then it slowly, almost majestically turned around and walked toward the others pigs, who pulled aside and let him pick the choicest bits of food.

And then my ladylike wife, who never swore said,  “What the fuck just happened.”

Tuskers. Chapter 1

I joked on Facebook about writing a story based on Bruce Millers constant struggle with javalinas (wild pigs).

Here's what I said:

"I want to write a book about a guy who retires from northern climes to a hot desert and thinks he's landed in paradise. Then the pigs come. Night after night, they torture him. The battle escalates, and the more he tries to fight them, the craftier and more numerous they become. He becomes besieged in his house, unable to leave without a sharpened spear. His dog disappears. Then his wife. The neighborhood is eerily silent and empty. Finally...they eat him."

Well, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

I envision a kind of JAWS scenario.

Here's the first chapter, rough, of course.


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Tuskers

Chapter 1

“Hamilton?” the dispatcher Lara couldn’t quite hide her needling tone.  “Guess who just called about the javelinas?”

Shit, Hamilton thought. The guy just can’t let it go.

“I’ve got things to do, Lara,” he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.  He wouldn’t give the dispatchers the satisfaction.  The phone was on the passenger seat, on speaker.  “I’ll get there later this afternoon.”

“He sounded pretty desperate,” Lara said.

“He always does.  Roger and out.”

Actually, his morning was clear.  He just wasn’t looking forward to listening to Barry Hunter bitching about the damn pigs again.

Still, without consciously making the decision, he drove the Animal Control van toward the foothills.  It was going to be a hot day.  Despite the irritation, it might be better to take care of the problem in the morning cool.

Barry was standing at the doorway to the porch, as if expecting him.  Hamilton got out and trudged up the steps, waiting for the onslaught.

But Barry was uncharacteristically quiet.  He waited until Hamilton had reached his side.

“They’re getting dangerous Hamilton,” he said.

“Just stay out of their way,” Hamilton began, his usual reassurance.  “You leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone.”

“Jesus, Hamilton.  You don’t have a clue, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dogs and cats are disappearing all over the neighborhood.”

“Coyotes,” Hamilton said.  “Keep your animals inside if you want them to be safe, or in pens.”

“That’s just it,” Barry said, sounding exasperated.  “They’re getting into the pens.  Hell they’re getting into porches and houses!”

“What?” Hamilton asked, dryly.  “Are they turning the doorknobs?  Using their keys?”

“Laugh if you want, buddy,” Barry said.  “It’s happening and you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later.  Come on, I want you to see this…”

He led Hamilton to the back yard.  It looked like a tornado had touched down.  A row of birdfeeders were knocked down, a concrete birdbath was on its side, the flower beds where completely overturned and petals littered the torn up lawn.

“Why the hell did they do this?” Barry asked.  “They didn’t even stop long enough to eat it, this time.”

“Have you thought of a fence?” Hamilton said.  His suggestion was the standard one.  He had to admit that Barry had a point.  No one should have to put up with this.’

“How tall would it have to be?”

“To keep the deer out, too?  About six feet ought to do it.”

“Great, just great.  That’s why I moved down here…to look at the back of a fence.”

Hamilton was silent.  There was nothing he could really do.  He was allowed to kill a certain number of the wild pigs per year.  No more.  Personally, though, he thought that gardening was probably a non-starter in these parts.  If it wasn’t the javelinas, it was the deer, if it wasn’t the deer, it was the yellow bellied marmots (what the locals called rockchucks.)

You want a lawn? He wanted to say.  Move to Albuquerque.  

But his mouth had gotten him in trouble more than once.   Probably why he was still on duty roaming the foothills instead of safely back at the air-conditioned headquarters.

Hunter wasn’t done.

“I’m telling you, Hamilton.  There is something weird going on.  These fucking pigs are too damn smart.  And they fucking eat everything.  And what they don’t eat, they fucking destroy for no good reason.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Hamilton said.  “But I’ll make a report.”

“Make a report…” Hunter repeated, eyeing him ruefully.  “Yeah, you do that.”

***

  Hamilton intended to drive back to town, get some lunch.  Instead, he found himself driving further up the foothills.   Below was the hot central part of the lower valley.   People there had the most vermin but complained the least, and when they did complain, they had the least clout.  Hamilton was rarely asked to go down there.

He drove past the neighborhoods of snowbird retirees.  Some of these clueless folk thought the wildlife was just wonderful, deserving to be fed and pampered.  They filled their Facebook pages with pictures of deer and raccoons, and gushed about how wonderful it was to live in nature.

Then there were those, like Barry Hunter, who were convinced the animals were pests who ought to be exterminated.

Neither camp was right, as far as Hamilton was concerned.

His usual rant was coming and he let it spill out into the empty van and out the open window.  What he wanted to say to his bosses, to the public, to anyone who would listen.

“Wild animals should be wild,” he said to his imaginary audience.  “Don’t feed the damn things.  You aren’t doing them any favors.  You’re just acclimating them to humans so they hang around, making them easier to hunt, so they don’t get the natural diet that keeps them healthy and makes them dependent, that congregates them in overpopulated and disease ridden vectors, and makes them vulnerable to cars and trucks, and just generally makes the whole situation unnatural and unhealthy. 

“Dammit!” he ended lamely. 

He couldn’t work up much outrage anymore.  It was an insoluble problem, as far as he was concerned.  Unless they made him King of Arizona, (as they should), it was just going to get worse.

He drove past Barry Hunter’s secluded neighborhood, and up into the foothills, to the abandoned subdivisions.  Here were paved roads and sidewalks that led nowhere; an occasional forlorn house, already weathered by the neglect of only a few years. 

He stopped at his favorite spot and got out of the van.  He could see the whole valley from here.  It was a typically hot day, and he could see the wavy heat currents rising over the subdivisions.  There was a slight breeze up here, cancelled by a brutal sun.  But Hamilton had long ago resigned himself to sweat and grime, so he just stood in the shade of the van and took in the air.

He saw the streaking shadow from the corner of his eyes.  Whatever creature it was, it had gone under the car.

He sighed.  He’d had this problem before.  A fisher had tried to hide in the shade of his car and when he’d driven away, he’d squashed the damn thing.  Nowadays, he tried to shoo the damn things away, even snakes, though the snakes gave him the willies.  (Something he kept to himself.  Animal Control Officers were supposed to be fearless.)

He opened up the back of the van and grabbed the Snagger.  He loosened the metal loop to the size he thought would handle the size of the shadow he’d glimpsed, and then took the end of the tube in hand.  He got down on his knees, and bent his head under the car.  Usually the animals crouched near the illusionary safety of the tires.  He looked at the front end first, then the back. 

He heard something behind him.  A huffing that sounded almost like a growl.  He banged his head trying to turn around.

Five javelinas surrounded him.  The one in the middle was the biggest pig he’d ever seen, the size of a Rottweiler or bigger.  Lying on the ground as he was, it appeared enormous, with huge tusks, longer than normal, snobby legs and a broad chest.  Tuffs of fur around its mouth and eyes. 

The eyes…

He was transfixed by the look he saw there.  It was like looking into the eyes of something almost human -- an angry, malevolent and very intelligent creature.

The leader grunted something, and the pig on the far leg shot forward and ran down the side of Hamilton’s leg.  At first, he didn’t feel anything.  Then an agonizing pain shot through his leg and up his body and he screamed.  He could see the legs of his overalls flopping onto the road, and red blood, squirting out over the asphalt.

Then the pig on the right did the same to his right leg.

Again he screamed, and he tried to get up, but his legs weren’t working.  The pigs were watching him now, as if curious, like children watching an ant pile they’d tossed a match into.  

Especially the leader.  It cocked its head to one side, an almost human gesture. 

Then it approached quietly. It stank.  The pigs really reeked, and the odor lingered on he overall’s all day whenever he caught one.  He preferred to skip those calls whenever possible.  (Though that damned Barry Hunter always insisted on him.)

The leader came up to Hamilton’s face.  The javelina snuffed mucus into his eyes.  Hamilton closed his eyes, stinging and watering, and then opened them to see the pig had its teeth near his throat.  It was just waiting for Hamilton to look, and then it lunged and bit into the soft tissue below the chin.

Hamilton tried to scream but it sounded muffled. An overwhelming lassitude came over him.  I give up, he thought.

Fucking javelinas.

My Dad's story.

My Dad was fascinated by the Lost Blue Bucket Mine.  I know he wrote a couple of articles on it.  I found a Bulletin story, with a picture of him with a map showing the line of geological gold deposits and where it intersects with the path of the wagon train. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19831110&id=I5ZTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M4cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5054,3617362

So it's weird that here I am also writing a story about it.  A genre fiction story, to be sure, but still curious.

It's also a curious feeling to know I have two books finished.  They only need that last clean edit, and they should be ready to go.

I'm not quite ready to dive into writing again.  I'm certainly not in the mood to re-write.

So I've been researching The Lost Blue Bucket Mine.

I intend to try to visit the actual locations of the wagon train route.  For those of you that don't know it happened in eastern Oregon.

Weirdly, the whole story is a parallel to the Donner Party.  Stephen Meek, lesser known brother to Joe Meek, leads a wagon train on a 'shortcut', gets lost, the pioneers suffer from bad water and heat, and so on.

I read a review of a book based on the incident, and the reviews were scathing because of the historical inaccuracy.

(I realize there is a movie, but I'm purposely avoiding it.  I don't want to be influenced, or accused of copying.)

Well, while I want to be right in the tone and the overall details, I'll be messing quite a bit with the actual story.

But I'm fiction, right?  Not only fiction, but genre fiction.  I think being historically accurate as often as possible makes the story better, but...it is a story.

I'm looking forward to this book, but I've come around the conclusion that the more I prepare in advance, the more I think about it and plan it, the easier the book will be and the less rewriting will be necessary.

When I started this writing journey three years ago, I was winging it.  I didn't believe in plot outlines. But when you write yourself in enough corners, you realize planning it out a little is a big savings in time and effort.

I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to plan out the book.  (At the same time The Death Spend No Gold is being edited.)

I'll probably start writing around August 1. 

Free to write another book!

Finally.

I have The Dead Spend No Gold done except for the final copy-editing.

I have Faerylander done, and ready to go out to the editors, right after that.

I have several books I could do rewrites on, but I want to alternate rewrites with new books and it is new books turn

So I may write another Virginia Reed novel, while I still have her in mind, or I may try fiddling with my Steampunk novel idea.  Or some other idea may come out of nowhere, as often happens.

I'm learning to be a little more prepared before I start first drafts.  Basically, I try to have all the proper ingredients, all the necessary characters, a theme, and a vague story arc, from which I know I can assemble a proper novel.

I'm going to try to stick to the following process:

1.) Think about the book in advance.  Make sure there is enough there for a book.
2.) Write the book quickly.
3.) Set it aside for a couple months, at least.
4.) Come back and rewrite it.
5.) Give it to editors.
6.) Do another rewrite.
7.) Have editor do clean edit.

I'm going to try to avoid these 3rd and 4th rewrites.  Sometimes the books are improved slightly, but it seems to me that I also can clutter up the story and writing, too.  There is a cost as well as a benefit.

I suppose it depends on how good of a job I do in planning the book and writing that first draft.

If I mess it up, so that the above process won't do the job, I'm beginning to think I might be better off just going on to another book.

Spending 3 times the time on rewriting as I do on writing seems like a silly thing to do.

I'm going to do some research on the Lost Blue Bucket Mine over the next week or two, and see if I can get Virginia Reed in trouble again...

Done.

The Dead Spend No Gold: Bigfoot and the California Gold Rush.  (A Virginia Reed Adventure.)

Or will be, today.

Linda and I read through the entire book.  It was almost a collaborative effort.

Especially the love scenes.  I tend to write, uh, terse, love scenes.  Not very effusive.  Linda writes much more sentimentally.  So when I fuse the two, I think the scene works much better.

The second half of the book had fewer problems than the first half,  I think because when changes are made in the book, you have to go back to the beginning to make the changes consistent.

It is at least 10K words longer than the previous version, but the new stuff was all good and necessary I think.

The only thing I'm still concerned about is giving some kind of preachy history of the Indian genocide in California, and also repeating the themes of environmental destruction.

I'm thinking of spinning off a version today, and just cutting anything that is exposition, and see how it reads.  Just as an experiment.

But basically I'm done. 

Just a few touchups, and I'll be sending this off the Bren and Lara.  Hopefully get it back by August 1.

Exciting improvements.

 I've read half of the book out loud to Linda, and I think we are really improving it.  I'm so glad I took this extra step.

Last night, as I was going to bed, four new scenes for The Dead Spend No Gold erupted in my mind -- fully formed and feeling wholly organic.

I managed to go to sleep, and woke up first thing in the morning and wrote two of the new scenes, as well as several little additions in the rest of the book.

I read the scenes to Linda, who teared up (always a really good sign if Linda is emotionally affected) and I knew that I was on the right track.

"Are you sure the new scenes don't slow down the book?" I asked.

"They are the book," she answered.

I thought the book was ready with the last draft, but I think I've improved it by quite a bit since them.  It is feeling real, and complete, and I'm getting more and more happy with it.

The characters are being fleshed out, their motivations developed.

One of the scenes is a really cathartic ending.  (Not sure  if the climax or the chapter before the climax.)

It's really fun when this happens.  There is something about knowing that it is the "last" draft that concentrates the mind, pulls that little bit extra out of you.

It's gaining depth.  Hard to get that.  It's what I strive for, and I think it is happening.

I'm getting really proud of this book.

All this work may push back the finish by a couple of weeks, but I think it is well worth it.


Earlier entry:

Reading out loud is time consuming, but has been very productive.  I'm surprised by how many things I find that I need to change.  Frankly, a little alarmed by it.  I was ready to send this off, now I'm glad I took the time to make one more pass through.

I probably shouldn't be surprised.  I made some major changes, added nearly 10K words, so yeah it was bound to have some rough patches.

I feel good about what's happening.  It is like having everything you need and just giving it that final tightening up and polish. 

There are these places where I could leave the manuscript alone and it would be fine, but I have a niggling suspicion that it could be better if I reorganized it slightly.

Under those terms, it can be hard to make the changes.  But I did so with Led to the Slaughter, and I'm glad I did, so I'm trying to give The Dead Spend No Gold the same attention.

Off the cuff.

I tend not to read a lot when I'm writing.  Don't want to be influenced.

If I do read, I read mysteries, since that isn't the genre I write.

But I also don't read as much because I simply don't enjoy the books as much.  I'm on to their tricks.

Some of my favorite writers are obviously winging it, riding their success, throwing these new books out off the cuff.

I recognize it because it's what I am trying not to do.

But once you've reached such a level of success, it must be nearly irresistible.

The most extreme examples are when they have co-authors.  Patterson and Cussler, etc.

Seems to me that this is the writer just saying, "Yeah, I'm a hack.  I'm just in it for the money.  What of it?"

Thing is, by this time in their career, they know they will never be a "serious" writer.

Me?  I just want to write entertaining stories, but try to put a little more effort into it.  I don't care about the labels.  But I also just won't sell out,  just for the big bucks.  I enjoy writing -- I don't want to make it into sausage making.