The Pigs Ambled On

Halt, You Swine

By John O’Bryan

“Hey, you guys need help?” I asked through the rolled-down window of my pickup.

My wife Kelly, our daughter Molly, and I had just come upon two very large pigs strolling down the middle of Main Street in a northern central Idaho town (this is a true story, but the exact place and names have been disguised to protect the innocent).

The pigs looked for all the world like a father and son on a Sunday walk after the church potluck. 

Earlier in the year, my daughter had broken her ankle and we were just returning from an appointment with a very tan orthopedic doctor who spent half the year fishing in Mexico and the other half taking money from people whose daughters are sure they know how to skateboard and realize too late that it’s a lot harder than it looks.

He was certain he could fix it…for a price. It was mid-afternoon and I was looking forward to being home. 

“Dude, yes,” a man replied to my query. He was dressed in ratty blue jeans and a muscle shirt with the armpits cut out to the waist and a filthy trucker hat pulled over greasy hair. He weighed all of one hundred and twenty pounds and his tattoo-to-tooth ratio was about two to one.

I jumped out of my truck (I was very thankful I was driving it and not my Prius because no one in Idaho ever trusts anyone in a Prius, or Pious, as I’ve come to call it) and slowly walked towards the animals with an eye to getting in front of the six-hundred-pound beasts. Tattoo guy jumped around yelling and waving his arms, trying to get the pigs to do something—what, I’m not sure, but from the looks of him he was trying to stampede them into the sunset.

A stocky guy in a clean white T-shirt and heavy-duty work pants came out of a big brick building and started yelling.

“Damn it, Billy, didn’t I tell you to let me know when you were going to let the pigs out of the trailer?” Billy jumped around even more, hollering and whistling, trying to look like he was doing something important or at least working really hard. He never looked at the guy yelling at him.

“They just jumped out!”

The pigs ambled on, ignoring all three of us. The guy, who I assumed was Billy’s boss, saw me and yelled, “Try to cut them off and head them back this way.” 

I could tell by the tone of his voice that he knew I was an experienced swineherd. It was probably my running shoes, ethical outdoor pants and fleece jacket but I had him completely fooled, because in actuality my only experience with swine was back in high school, helping my friend Gary feed and run his fair pig. 

It has also been a long standing tradition in our family to stick our fingers in the snouts of pigs at the fair.  Don’t ask me why this became a thing, but it did, and because we often have to sneak up on the pig to do this, I knew enough to not make any sudden movements.

The boss began clicking softly to the pigs like he knew them. They hesitated and looked at him. It was enough of a distraction for me to find my way to the front of the herd.

I’ve seen large, snotty, aggressive swine before, the kind that will grind you into the mud, and then sit on you until you drown, and then eat you, but these weren’t like that and looked for all the world as if they were going out for an afternoon stroll to check on Mildred, their aging aunt, before heading home for their evening bowl of nutritious feed and a belly scratch from their owner Tammy, who probably was named after Tammy Wynnette because her mom just loved the song “Stand By Your Man,” which reminded her of how she stood by little Tammy’s dad even though he was a no-good drunk. 

I think Tammy’s dad had turned the corner and now was no longer a drunk, just no good, which was a big improvement, because he didn’t drink his paycheck anymore, even though he sometimes gambled it away at the casino. Soberly.

Big Wilbur stared at me with his beady eyes and stopped. Little Wilbur bumped into his rear end, looked up, and stopped too. Dumb and Dumber, I thought as I stared at them, but the intelligence in Big Wilbur’s eyes belied dumbness. 

He eyed me for a good long time, as if weighing his options: run right through the old guy with glasses or head back to the flailing tattoo guy. He did neither. Instead he turned and ambled towards the sidewalk. I slowly walked with them and little by little was able to turn them back towards the trailer out of which they had just made their escape.

Things were looking very, very good and I would soon be on my way, having done what I smugly considered to be my good deed of the day. 

Clicking Boss shook a big silver bowl of food in a way that even I thought sounded appetizing, and the pigs doubly so. They picked up their pace a bit as he backed his way towards the metal trailer ramp. He backed up the ramp and Big Wilbur docilely followed him in. Little Wilbur put one hoof on the metal and proceeded to stumble, slip, and fall down the ramp.

Flailing Billy rushed up, grabbed the pig, and tried to force it into the back of the trailer. At this, Big Wilbur caught Clicking Boss off guard and grabbed at the bowl with his teeth, bringing it clashing to the floor like a dinner bell off its hinges. Both animals bolted, knocking me and Flailing Billy to the ground. 

Clicking Boss shot out of the trailer, picked me up by my shirt, and shoved a pig board in my hand. (This is a big wooden board with two handles cut into it so you can grasp it with both hands. It is used to separate pigs when they fight.) He pushed me up the sidewalk to try to get in front of the pigs, who were trotting (yes, pigs do trot) down the center of the road, stopping rush-hour traffic, which consisted of two grain trucks, one bank out wagon (a tractor-grain cart), a utility company bucket truck, and a field sprayer.

Everyone bailed out of their vehicles and tried to stop the stampeding pigs. The utility guy was knocked over, bank out wagon guy was trampled, and as the animals came closer to the field sprayer guy, he hugged the side of his truck and let them run on by. 

We all watched as the pigs slowed and turned into a beautifully landscaped home on the north side of the road. They went through the gate and up onto the porch like they owned the place. They didn’t. At about this time I turned, looking for some guidance from Clicking Boss.

One glance at him and I knew these not only weren’t little Tammy’s 4H pigs but things had just gotten very serious. Boss was no longer clicking. He was pissed. It wasn’t just his furrowed brow and angry eyes that clued me into the impending doom—it was more the hunting rifle that he was walking down the middle of the street with. 

There are some people who know how to hold guns and there are some people who just look like guns have been a part of their life for a very long time. Big Gun Boss was the latter. He looked for all the world like one of those guys who hunted down a Taliban leader in Lone Survivor. 

A huge dust cloud swirled across the road and he stepped through it. The sun glinted off his yellow shooting glasses and his bare arms glistened with the sweat of exertion. But the pigs weren’t about to give up easily. 

Everyone was calling to the pigs now and circling around to get behind them. In the excitement, the pigs bolted off the porch, their hooves digging large chunks of paint off the wood, and galloped (yes, pigs gallop) back towards the trailer and safety. We all trotted after them. Big Gun Boss was having none of it. He raised his rifle and took aim.

“No good!  No clear shot! Abort firing.” He was yelling to himself. He pointed at me with two fingers and then pointed forward. No words were spoken, but I took my pig board and my flaccid upper body and sprinted forward, keeping to the north of the pigs. They suddenly stopped.

Big Gun Boss held up a fist—I had seen enough movies to know that this was the universal sign for everyone to halt. We halted, all eyes trained on him.

With two fingers he pointed at Utility Truck Guy and then at the pigs. He nodded and moved slowly forward. He pointed at everyone else and motioned for them to fan out, and they all fanned out like a high school flag corps lining up on the sidelines behind the football team just before the halftime show.

He motioned for them to follow behind and as one, they all moved slowly forward, like zombies in The Walking Dead. 

The pigs saw what was happening and turned towards me. I held my pig board like a seasoned veteran and said, “Not in my house, you swine!” I was not going to be the weak link that let the team down. Lives were at stake, and I took my duty seriously. Big Gun Boss nodded at me with approval, and I stood a little taller. 

I started to relax a bit. The pigs were moving in the right direction, and they would soon be back into the trailer and on their way home to their owner. Big Gun Boss had relaxed a bit too, and I could tell he was relieved that he didn’t have to shoot the pigs in the neighbor’s yard.

What a mess that would have been, not to think about all the paperwork for insurance. We had won the day with an overwhelming show of force. This battle would have a happy ending.

The pigs wandered back to the side of the building and stopped in the shade. They were tired and hot and needed a drink. I looked over at Kelly and Molly and they looked so proud. Molly was even filming my heroics. What an amazing day of helping. I would remember this for a long time. What a day.

“Stop!”  Big Gun Boss pointed at all of us to hold our place. We did. But I was ready to be done with this and go home. I leaned my board against the side of the trailer and turned to go. 

Big Gun Boss held the gun at his shoulder and drew a bead on Big Wilbur. Both pigs stared at him. There was a sound like a gunshot because, well, it was a gunshot and then another sound like a gunshot and I heard my wife and Molly scream and when I looked back, Big Wilbur and Little Wilbur were peacefully sleeping next to each other in the dirt. 

Big Gun Boss Guy lowered his gun and looked at me.

“All righty, then,” I said, as nonchalantly as possible. I was about to give him my best double finger guns as a final salute but thought better of it. He nodded and turned away.

He slung the rifle across his back and walked towards the door to the building. I walked towards my truck, not taking my eyes off him. As he entered, the trance was broken and my eyes swung up to the sign above the doorway. It read, in big white letters, “Butcher Shop.”   

I got into my truck and sat there for a few moments, trying to process what had just happened. I have hunted and seen things killed. I even hacked up a deer once [see “Deersplitter John,” IDAHO magazine, June 2024] but I’d never seen such things on Main Street, Anywhere, USA, and I was a little shocked.

I felt like I had been transported a hundred years into the past and, except for the modern rifle, I could have been standing in Maycomb, watching Atticus Finch kill the rabid dog before it hurt anyone.

“Well that was a bit surreal, wasn’t it?” I said with a lightness I didn’t feel.

Kelly was pale and looked for all the world like she wanted to kill me for having stopped to help. I started the truck and saw in the rearview mirror that tears were streaming down Molly’s cheeks.

“Oh, honey. I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked.

“He killed them?” was all she could say.

I put the truck in gear and pulled back onto the road.

“No, honey. Those were just warning shots that made the pigs lie down. They’re on their way back home to their owner now, whose name is Tammy.” 

Obviously, I didn’t tell her they were on the way back to Tammy’s freezer. Some things are better left unsaid.