Here is another scene from The Avenging Angel, Book Three of the series. In Book One, The Last Day of Forever, there is another hog hunting scene. This one takes place ten years after that one. They have just arrived on the scene where the Catahoula dogs have a hog cornered. Little Zeke has not been seen since The Last Day of Forever. Theo is a new character in The Avenging Angel.
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We dismounted, and I retrieved two short ropes from my saddlebags. “You flip and I sit? Or I flip and you sit?” I asked Little Zeke.
He looked down at that hog, which was one about medium size, less than two hundred pounds.
Before he could answer, Theo did. “I’ll flip, you two old men take it easy and sit.”
We both looked at the grinning Theo like he might have had two heads.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“That puny little piglet ain’t no match for me. I’ll flip.”
Zeke frowned. “You ever done this before?”
“Plenty. We gonna jawbone about it or shall we get to it before he hurts one of the dogs?”
I looked at Little Zeke with my face wrinkled in a frown. He shrugged and said, “The boy says he can do it. Let him have at it, I say.”
“Very well, Theo. The pleasure is yours.”
Theo bowed deeply. “Thank you. You have the ropes ready?”
I held them up. “At your service, sir.”
“Then let’s get after it.”
“You coming?” I asked my father.
Pernell threw a leg over the pommel of his saddle and leaned forward. “This looks like it could get interesting, and I’m too old to outrun a hog, besides it could get a bit crowded down there with all of us. I’ll watch from up here.”
I tipped my hat. “Have it your way, but you’ll miss all the fun.”
“I doubt that,” he muttered under his breath.
We made our way down the side of the low ridge to the bottom. The hog was more interested in the dogs, and we tried to approach him from his rear to keep him from taking any interest in us. That didn’t last long. With Theo leading, Zeke and I following close behind, we were within about fifteen feet of the hog, when he suddenly turned on the two dogs on his left side and spotted us. He kind of lost all interest in the dogs then and came after us with the dogs in hot pursuit.
It was time to find a tree.
Zeke went one way. I went another, and the hog stayed on Theo. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone run so fast as that boy did that morning. Theo rounded a tree and reversed course on the hog. It took the pig but a second to figure out what had happened and reverse course, himself. Theo lit out, but the hog was gaining.
The boy headed for a tree with a branch hanging about six feet off the ground, and the hog was but three or four feet behind him—and catching up. I figured Theo would grab that branch and swing up into the safety of the tree, but he did something I have never seen before. He did grab the branch, but, hanging by his hands, he swung up and over the branch as the hog passed under and slid to a stop, confused and looking for Theo.
Completing his orbit of the branch, the boy landed right behind the hog, and pretty as you please, he reached down and grabbed him by his hocks, lifted his rear end off the ground, and flipped him on his side.
I looked at Zeke, and he looked at me. Neither of us could believe what we had just seen.
Theo still holding the squealing hog by his hocks and keeping him down on its side. “You two old men just going to stand there, or are you goin’ to come an’ help me?”
“Comin’, boss,” I replied as we rushed over and sat down on the pig’s side, pinning it. I handed Theo the ropes, and he hogtied it.
Zeke and I stood, and Theo stepped back, and with his hands on his hips he looked at the subdued hog with a smile of triumph on his face. “And that, gentlemen, is how you flip a pig.”
Zeke looked at me and shook his head. “In all the times we chased hogs together, I ain’t never seen you do a trick like that.”
I put my arm around Theo’s shoulders and grinned at Zeke. “I taught him everything he knows.”
His brow wrinkled, Theo looked up at me. “Even in your prime, you couldn’t have done that.”
I playfully slapped him behind his head. “Hush, boy, or you’ll be sleeping with the pig tonight.”
Catahoula Chronicles 