Randall had backed his Ford Bronco up to the barn door. A trailer was attached, the bed of the trailer covered in a blue tarp. We spent the next twenty minutes heaving what remained of Miss Piggy into the trailer. My ribs screamed out at me, but, if possible, the stench of the exploded sow took sensory precedence.
Most of what exploded, the entrails and some of her guts, was contained by the bedding of hay on the ground, and we were able to pile this into the trailer as well.
Just as we finished, a plume of dust swirled at the edge of the hill; a truck was driving up the road. The truck bounced over the many ruts, splashed through the ever-present puddle, then parked a few feet from Randall’s Bronco.
There was a glare off the windshield, and I couldn’t make out who was behind the wheel. The door opened, and a woman stepped out.
“Hiya, Wheeler,” Randall said. “I thought that was you.”
Sarah Lanningham was wearing jean shorts, a gray tank top, and a red St. Louis Cardinals hat. For the first time, I realized she was hiding some spectacular curves under her doctor’s coat.
Hubba hubba.
“Hiya, Randall,” she said, walking over to give him a quick hug. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced in the direction of the trailer hitched to his Bronco and said, “Helping get rid of this here sow.”
Sarah leaned over the edge of the trailer, showcasing she’d put in her time on the elliptical, and peered down. “What the hell did you guys do to her?”
I pointed at Randall and said, “He did it.”
Randall opened his mouth and threw up his hands. He didn’t cop to it, and I explained, “We tried to roll her off the loft and onto some hay bales, but it didn’t go as planned.”
Sarah said, “She looks like she got hit by an IED.”
Randall let loose a laugh, and I could tell he was running the clip back over in his head. Just the look on his face started me laughing, and soon we were both giggling like children.
My eyes were watering, but I could see Sarah wasn’t amused. She shook her head and said, “I came to check on the piglets.” She looked around. “Where are they?”
I cocked my head toward the house. “Inside.” Then nodding at Randall, I said, “Randall here was going to help me fix up the pigpen.”
Sarah said, “Oh, well, I can come back some other time.”
“No, no,” Randall interjected. “You two go on. I’ll take care of the pigpen myself.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, you’ll just get in the way.”
He was probably right.
The lumber I bought the previous day was still strapped to the top of the Range Rover, and I asked, “You need any help getting the wood down?”
He shook his head and waved for the two of us to leave him be.
I thanked him and started toward the farmhouse.
“Good to see you, Randall,” Sarah said, joining me. “Make sure you get Roscoe in for a checkup here pretty soon.”
Randall promised to do just that.
She turned to me—her honey-colored eyes had taken on a slight amber hue under the red ball cap—and said, “Roscoe is his black lab.”
“That’s a great name,” I said, then added, “Speaking of names, why did he call you Wheeler?”
We were a couple steps from the porch, and she stopped. “Most people around here still call me that. It’s my middle name.”
“You don’t seem to like it.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why go by it?”
“It wasn’t by choice. In first grade, my class was fifteen kids, eight girls, and three of us were named Sarah. Sarah Graves, Sara Whitfield, and me. My teacher just started calling me by my middle name the first week, and everyone has called me Wheeler ever since.”
“Where did Wheeler come from?”
She sighed. “It’s my mom’s maiden name. It comes from the old English days when your last name was what you did for work.”
“Like Blacksmith?”
She nodded.
“So what did a Wheeler do?”
“Um,” she said, giving me a sideways glance. “They made wheels.”
I forced a laugh. “Right.”
First chunky.
Now dumb.
I was tempted to tell her I once got a B- on an algebra test in high school, but I didn’t want to add bragger to that list.
I said, “My middle name is Dergen.”
“Dergen?” She stifled a laugh.
“What?”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“That’s what we call cow shit out here.” She laughed and said, “That cow just took a big old dergen.”
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah, I’d keep that to yourself if I were you.”
We moved up the porch and toward the front door. It was still technically on its hinges, but it was hanging by a thread.
Wheeler asked, “Was the front door like this when you got here?”
I told her about how after I fell out of the tree I grabbed the tire iron from my car and went The Shining on the door.
She found this amusing.
“How’s your body feeling these days?” she asked.
“A little better. Thanks again for those Hydrocodone, those really helped.”
She shrugged.
“Except they were Tylenol.”
“Like I’m gonna give some strange guy off the street prescription drugs.”
“Yeah, that was probably smart of you.”
We entered the house, and I called out, “Harold! May! We have a visitor.”
There was a pitter-pattering, and the two little piglets came barreling around the corner. Both Wheeler and I crouched down and let the piglets attack us.
“Oh, thank you for the kisses,” Wheeler said, picking up May. She sniffed, looked at me suspiciously, then asked, “Why do they smell so good?”
I shrugged.
“You gave them baths, didn’t you?”
“I plead the Fifth.”
She picked up Harold and said, “You must be Harold.”
Harold wiggled his little tail and oinked.
We headed into the dining room, and she gave each of the piglets a quick exam. When she finished, she said, “Well, I half expected to come here and find two little dead piglets, but it appears you have done a pretty good job so far.”
“Is that a backhanded compliment?”
She shrugged, then asked, “What time did they last eat?”
“It’s been a few hours.”
We made
