“He was a tall man,” said the boy. “Tall with tired eyes and he didn’t blink much. And he had big scars all over his face and around his mouth that made it look like his mouth was three times as big as a normal man’s. Here and here,” he said, and drew the lines on his cheeks that they all knew so well.
“How’d you meet him?”
The boy hesitated, like he was about to impart a terrible secret about himself. “You won’t tell no one, will you?”
“Why? What’s he done?”
“I just don’t want anyone to know. I just don’t want anyone else to know what I saw him do.”
“What did he do?”
“You promise you won’t tell no one? I don’t like them even knowing I talked to him.”
“Tell us,” said Hammond. “We’re only interested in the man.”
The boy shuddered in the wind and said, “We was slaughtering a pig.”
And he told them.
The boy has been to slaughters before but he has never gotten used to the screams.
It is impossible to say exactly why the sow screams. They have done nothing to harm it or scare it, not yet, and yet somehow when the animal turns and sees the men in the doorway bearing a rope in hand it understands. There is something wrong. It looks at the men and even with its primitive mind it recognizes murder in their movements.
The men subdue it and the boy helps, trying to keep it in the corner, and they tie its neck and lead it out and bind its legs. It is a dangerous task. Its hooves are sharp and hard as stone and its teeth can crush and tear through fingers. But the men have done this before. They know the animal better than it knows itself. When it bites at their hand they snap back and when it lashes out or thrashes they are already there to restrain it. The men complete their lethal dance with a lover’s care and the boy’s father turns to him and says, “Watch.”
The boy watches.
The creature trumpets and screams, its chest heaving and strings of snot and spittle running from its snout. The men loop a cord around its front two legs and pull the legs away to expose the throat and the boy’s father steps forward, knife shining in his hand and his eyes shining in that strange dull way, and he looks at the animal for a moment and the arm stabs down, quick and sure, and punctures the animal’s throat. The movement has no doubt, no question. It knows where it is going.
The spray of blood is terrific, as is its hue. Never would a man think that so much blood could come from an animal, and so red. It is a geyser bursting forth, a stronger and more violent flow than urination, more sporadic than any assault or sex. It pumps with the beast’s heart, whipping out, and still the creature screams. The blood mixes with the clay dust, red on red, and it is hard to tell where the earth starts and gore begins.
Still it screams, bellowing in its death throes, an ancient sound. The men keep the animal subdued but now they all watch, letting the seconds tick by. Its cries weaken. Soon it is wheezing, breath whistling through its slackening chest. The pool of blood spreads, and still the tiny aperture in its throat dribbles blood, gentle spurts becoming arrhythmic.
The flow ceases to a seep. When the animal dies is difficult to say. The men do not consider it. They gather hay and pile it over the creature and set fire to it to remove the hair.
The boy watches the fire and wonders if the animal is dead. After all that screaming it may still be screaming on the inside.
“It won’t take much,” says a voice at his side.
The boy leaps and turns and looks. A man is standing beside him. He is tall and lank and the skin hangs loosely from his neck and chin. Wild tufts of white-gold hair form messy peaks on his scalp. A dusty black coat hangs from his shoulders, gray in some places and leathery in others, and his mouth has the curious feature of seeming almost distended, like melting rivers pouring out its corners and across his face. He watches the fire with distant eyes.
“What?” says the boy.
“It’s not a particularly hairy animal,” said the man. “I doubt if it will take many burnings.”
The boy wonders where he came from. The man seems to have come from nowhere. Then he looks at the man’s feet and sees his tracks leading away to the road. He came, thinks the boy, but came silently.
“Can I help you, sir?” says the boy’s father, suddenly aware of the man on his property.
“I heard the screams,” says the man. “I came to see. I’m sorry, I thought there may have been trouble.”
The man speaks like he has only recently learned that words exist. Not English, but all words. The nature of speaking is foreign to him.
“Oh,” says his father, disturbed. “Well, there’s no trouble here, sir.”
“No. I can see that.”
The men and the boy look at him awkwardly, waiting for him to leave. He does not. He stares at the form of the animal slumped in the bloodclay, flames licking its sides.
The man becomes aware of them again. “I can help,” he says.
“Eh?”
“I can help. I’ve been in slaughterhouses before. Many times. I can help.”
“We don’t need no help.”
“No, I suppose not. But many of you have more work to do, I would think.”
This is true. Today is the beginning of a busy day. They must salt the meat and then prepare the rest of the farm for their departure. The man has arrived at a difficult time.
“We don’t have much to pay you,” says his father.
“I didn’t expect much. Nor do I want it.”
“Fair enough,” says his father, and hands the man the scraper. “Help him,” he says to the boy, and most depart to other work.
Once the fire dies the boy helps the man hold the carcass down and the stranger straddles it, flipping the scraper over and over again in his hand with an easy grace. He looks at the body with a doctor’s care, then takes the scraper with both hands and begins to scour the body, making piles of burnt hair and scooping them off with the curved blade and flinging them away. The other men watch him, impressed by the surety of his movements. When he calls to them to flip the body over they and the boy react quickly. But again the boy notices his unfamiliarity with words. At first the call was not even a word, just a bleating noise that called for aid. Then the stranger seemed to remember and changed it as it tapered, adding in some vague command. Yet still they obeyed.
They flip the body over and the man takes handfuls of hay and sprinkles it on the other side. The boy looks down and sees rust and crimson streaks on the man’s coat.
“You’re getting blood on your coattails, mister,” he says.
“It’s of no matter,” says the man, and lights a match and begins the next fire. They stand back and watch it burn once more.
“You have seen a slaughter before,” says the man to the boy.
The boy nods.
“That is good.”
“Why?”
“Some places don’t know of such things. They don’t want to, either. They pretend they do not exist. But it is good to remember what we come from and what we go to,” says the man, watching the body burn.
“I killed a pig once,” says the boy.
“Did you?”
“Yes. It was a wild boar. I shot it.”
“Hunting?”
“No. It come into our barn. Started eating the piglets.”
The man nods, still watching the fire. He may not be listening.
“It was night and my pa was away,” says the boy. “I heard screaming. I thought it was people, just as you did. I came out and it was eating them and I shot it in the head with the shotgun.”
“You did well,” says the man. “Most would have run, or missed.”
