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.
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