Jana sat in the shade of the wrap-around porch and watched the swirl of people going by.
They had no sooner arrived than “Sonny” had been leaving with the UTV for a nickel-tour of the ranch. Dr von Tersch had frantically gestured to have Gwain join them.
Jana gave Gwain a wave. “I’ll be fine. After all, how long can it take to drive around the property?”
The afternoon had turned warm and Jana was content to sit in the glider and listen to the babble of happy voices.
A young Black man was passing by and noticed that she didn’t have anything to drink and had no food. Taking in her languid movement and her lack of hair, he asked “Can I get you something to eat?”
“No. No need to bother. I’ll be fine” Jana responded.
The Black man rephrased his question “When I bring you some food, is there anything you CAN’T eat.”
Jana sighed. “Since you insist, bring me something light, and just a little bit of it.”
In a few minutes the Black man unloaded a bewildering load of food. Jana’s plate had just a spoonful of this and a spoonful of that. The young man’s plate also had a modest amount of food, mostly high-protein items.
The man wordlessly handed Jana her silverware, rolled up in a napkin and then the plate. After a mumbled "Your welcome" to Jana's "Thank-you", the man sat next to her and started to eat.
Jana's plate held a little bit of smoked meat. Some mac-n-cheese. A dab of beans. Greens cooked with pork (more pork than greens, by the look of it). Salsa fresca. Some slaw with vinegar dressing. A bit of cornbread. He had also brought her a tumbler of lemonade.
“My name is Jana McCampbell, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart” Jana told him.
“Mine is Otis Grant” the man told her and then returned to eating.
Jana tilted her head a bit as he spoke. “I am guessing that you spent some time in New York City” she speculated.
“Let me guess, you read Pygmalion by Shaw” Otis parried.
“Guilty” Jana admitted. “I grew up in Delaware, so I can hear it in the vowels.”
“Clason Point, Bronx” Otis grudgingly shared.
“Funny how you can go to a big party and find somebody you have things in common with” Jana observed. “Here we are, two East-Coasters in Texas and BAM! We found each other.”
“Yep” Otis laconically noted.
"Do you know many of the people here?" Jana asked. Jana was puzzled that nobody stopped and chatted with him.
Otis briefly raised his eyes and did a quick scan, something he had been doing the whole time they had been talking "Yep. I work with most of them" and then returned his attention to his food.
Pulling words from Otis was like pushing a rope. He wasn't much of a talker.
Whether it was a slight shift in the angle of the light or the fact that she looked downward to better spear the food on her plate, Jana’s brain finally registered the fact that many of the men were wearing guns on their belts.
Tension edged Jana’s voice when she said to Otis in a low voice “Otis...did you happen to notice all of the guns.”
Otis said “It's a barbecue. This is Texas. What did you expect?”
“It’s not a big deal to you?” Jana asked.
“Nope. In fact, I am wearing one too.”
Jana’s eyes shot to Otis’s waist and sure enough he was carrying one of those boxy-looking guns in an ornate, leather holster with a basket-weave pattern embossed in its surface.
“Isn’t that one of those automatic pistols like the Cartels use?” Jana asked, aghast.
“It is a semi-automatic, not an automatic. All the difference in the world” Otis stated with finality.
“What is the difference?” Jana asked.
“For one thing, I can hit my target with a semi-auto. With a full-auto, maybe your first one or two shots will hit the target but then most of them fly off god-knows-where because the muzzle climbs" Otis said.
“So you are saying that a semi-auto is even more deadly than a full-auto, which makes it even more evil, right?” Jana pointed out, sure she had found a flaw in Otis’s logic.
“A semi-auto is more deadly to my enemies and less deadly to innocent people...at least in MY hands” Otis said.
“I don’t get it. Why would a grown, mature man feel a need to carry a gun?” Jana asked, bewildered.
“We live in an evil and fallen world” Otis said.
Jana shrugged in disbelief and gestured around her. “Look around you. This is a happy place. There is no evil here. There is absolutely no need for anybody to carry guns.”
“Nova Music Festival” was all Otis said.
“What?” Jana said.
“I was in Israel working on my thesis when Hamas attacked the Nova Music Festival. Minutes before it happened, everybody was happy. They were listening to anti-war folk-music and dancing. They saw no evil. Nobody had any guns. That was on October 7, 2023” Otis said.
“But there is nothing like that here” Jana insisted.
“The Israeli were sure that Iran, which was a 1000 miles away, was their biggest enemy. They couldn’t see the enemies right under their noses.” Otis said. “The attack killed over a thousand people.”
“So you are saying that if everybody was carrying a gun that it wouldn’t have happened?” Jana challenged.
“I am saying that if 10% of the men had been carrying a gun that they knew how to use and if each man had two spare magazines, that Hamas would not have dared to carry out the attack” Otis said.
They ate in stony silence, neither conceding their views. Nevertheless, Otis didn't leave, either.
Twenty minutes later, Gwain joined them.
“Well, that was ugly” Gwain said.
“What was ugly?” Jana asked.
“It is calving season and some wild hogs tore apart a day-old calf. Sonny insisted on setting some snares and hauling away what was left of the dead calf” Gwain said. “Messy business.”
“What do you mean, ‘wild hogs’? You mean like Russian boars?” Jana asked.
“Yes. More or less” Gwain agreed. “They live in the woods near the river* and come out in packs to forage when it is dark.”
Jana shivered. “Sounds horrible.”
Otis nodded in agreement and muttered in a soft voice “Another reason to carry a gun.”
(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved
*The wild hog population in Lamar county is primarily found in the wooded/brushy areas floodplains of the Red River on the north and the Sulphur river that forms the southern boundary of the county. Mature wild sows in Texas produce over 4 female "replacements" per year.
Great conversation introduction of character. Very engaging. Thank you !
ReplyDeleteO’Henry is smiling.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting start indeed.
ReplyDeleteWild Hogs seems to have happened because some rich hunters wanted Russian Boars to hunt like the Romanovs and such. Like the rabbits released in Australia for Sporting Hunting unintended consciences indeed.
Feral hogs have been regressing from domesticated stock for a lot longer than that.
DeleteIt was common practice to let pigs "run". They were marked with ear-notches to establish ownership and then allowed to harvest fallen acorns, nuts, tubers, rattlesnakes. They MIGHT get fattened with a little bit of corn in the autumn before slaughter.
It is a way to collect or harvest protein and calories that could not otherwise be collected economically by humans, much like free-range chickens.
Domestic breeds of swine regress back to their wild-form in relatively few generations when the selection pressure turns away from excess muscle and fat and favors the phenotypes that thrive in the wild.
True. Back in the Great Depression, many could not afford barbed wire. Great story, Joe. Jana is learning that her world is a bit more complicated than she expected !
Deletehttps://www.click2houston.com/news/2019/02/27/theyre-big-hairy-and-scary-wild-russian-boars-invading-texas/
DeleteSNIP The first feral hogs in the Lone Star State were descendants of escaped domestic pigs brought to what is now Texas by Europeans. For about 400 years, the feral hogs roamed remote corners of the state in small family groups. In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, wild Russian boars were imported to Texas for sport hunting. Some of those escaped, too. They quickly started breeding with the feral hogs.
According to Bodenchuk, “The hybrids are very good at having larger litters and surviving at a higher rate than true Russian boars.”
Now, Texas is experiencing a population explosion of problematic pigs.
Seems Joe we are both correct in this problem of wild hogs.
Old Yeller has a passage on marking pigs. I see a few sounders down here in south Texas every week just going to and from. They are omnivores.And they can be vicious. Everything edible is on the menu.
ReplyDeleteCf Those Devils In Baggy Pants, or Bricktop in the movie Snatch.
Feral hogs can be pretty much hunted year round in some localities as I recall due to their destructive nature and the fact that push out so much other wildlife and livestock.
ReplyDeleteIIRC you don't even need a hunting license in Texas to hunt them now. They are vermin.
DeleteAlabama requires a hunting license but has no closed season or bag limit for wild hogs. That’s going to be my summer hunting venture that will double as deer scouting time.
DeleteThere are only 28 states allow feral hog hunting.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's a shame.
DeleteFeral hogs are on my land, but are good at hiding during the day. I need to get a thermal scope and lose some sleep when I move there full time.
ReplyDeleteFred in Texas, feral pig can be pretty decent meat. A big boar?.... Nah, they have a hard, harsh gamy taste and they can be really spiced up as sausage or chorizo. Thats about it. Now a 50 to 70 pound sow? Thats a really nice BBQ animal. Pig roast? Sure!
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ReplyDeleteJoe, I hate you! Such a great story going on here, and nothing in the sidebar? I'm pretty sure I missed an episode, and I'd like to find it! Feral hogs, mostly reversion to type, very little interbreeding with the Russian wild boars, are considered pernicious pests here in Texas. No permit, no limit, 24/7/365. Helicopter hunting is permitted, even encouraged (by the outfitters, at least)
Very much on the money, and for hogs CARRY ENOUGH GUN!
ReplyDeleteFeral hogs can be dangerous. There are a number of rural areas near me* I don't want to be on foot after dark, and I certainly don't want to be there injured and alone.
ReplyDeleteChildren don't fare well with hogs either - old cemetery headstones from here to New England reflect killed by hogs. More recently and locally in November 2019, Christine Rollins, was killed by a pack of feral hogs in Anahuac, Texas.
Wild Pig Attacks on Humans by John J. Mayer, Savanna River National Laboratory - https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=icwdm_wdmconfproc
Agree with JC above. Some associates here wage 24/7 warfare against the pigs in every sense of the word.
* SE Texas, west of Houston
Israel killed most of those 1000. Your pistol would not stop an Apache gunship or a Merkova tank. Both of which were used by the Israeli Defense Forces as a deliberate policy to kill the kidnapped before they are kidnapped. Not to protect the victims from a fate worse than death, but to spare the government the stress and strife of extended hostage situations.
ReplyDeleteThey are so evil they thought this all out, kill the victims and blame Hamas, they even thought up a catchy name, The Hannibal doctrine.
I still like guns, but pro Israeli propaganda and unreasonable expectations don't belong in the gun debate.
If 10% of the Palis had been carrying in 1947, perhaps the colonists would have failed to take their land.
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