Fup by Jim Dodge

Author:Jim Dodge [Dodge, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: prose_contemporary

The drive-in was fun. The Sunday morning pig hunt was serious work-at least for Tiny and Fup. Since they started at dawn, Grand-daddy didn't go with them, seeing no reason to disturb his dreaming or, he claimed, show them up. He did, however, offer endless advice.

There was considerable argument among the local folks whether Fup was truly a pig-duck, a pig-duck in the sense that Boss had been a pig-dog. With her snake-necked waddle, beak working the ground like a bloodhound's nose as she weaved to cut fresh track, she looked like she was hunting. She didn't find many pigs, though, but either nosed down or blundered on enough to make it seem she knew what she was doing. To Tiny, who followed her with his.243 cradled in his arms, there was no question. When she hit fresh track she would start quacking to herself, and as the track got hotter, the volume and intensity increased. He considered it proof that she was indeed tracking and not just casting about. He was also convinced that she had an excellent nose, and though no one but Grand-daddy Jake agreed, he believed Fup could have trailed any pig she wanted. But she was after one pig in particular: Lockjaw. It was Tiny's notion that the few pigs she did nose out, while not the silent boar himself, were directly related to him, off-spring, that had a similar scent. Of course, he couldn't prove it, and that frustrated him. Granddaddy told him there was no need to prove it, that most things spoke for themselves, but to not necessarily assume he'd got the reasons right. The reasons for things, Granddaddy cautioned, were tricky.

In thirty-two Sundays of hunting, they found Lockjaw twice. The first time, Fup's crazed quacking scared him up early, and Tiny only had time for a single shot at 250 yards. At the sound of the rifleshot, Lockjaw went rolling down the hill. But when Tiny and Fup finally worked their way over to where they'd seen him go down, there was no sign of Lockjaw. No body, no blood. Fup picked up the trail immediately but lost it at the bottom of the draw where it hit McKensie Creek. They searched up and down the creek on both sides till well after noon but found no sign. Fup was so exhausted Tiny had to carry her home.

The second time they saw Lockjaw, Lockjaw had seen them first, circled back on his tracks, lay down to wait in a tanoak thicket, and when they passed, he charged, slashing at Tiny's legs and missing, but knocking him down, and literally running over Fup, smashing one of her webbed feet so severely Tiny had to carry her home again. But he'd gotten a clear-if quick-look at Lockjaw just before he'd been bowled on his ass, and he reassured Fup as he packed her along that Lockjaw couldn't last forever, that he seemed to be slowing down, looked a mite skinny, appeared to be missing a tusk, and definitely had a matching set of.

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