The kitchen phone was ringing and the old man picked it up. He grinned listening to someone confess and replied, “Yeah, I could tell he couldn’t even get in a good gut shot. It was just plain luck we were out there. It was my pleasure, stop on by, I just finished off the last of our hog meat so there’s plenty of room in the freezer now.”

Truxton was sitting at the dinner table while his grandfather was on the phone, he got on his knees and leaned closer to the stock pot and carefully tilted it towards him and ladled equal helpings of meat and vegetables into two soup bowls.

If he were still in the custody of his mother he would be using a paper towel as a plate with flimsy plastic take-out utensils. With her it was usually frozen pizza. Since no one was ever around he would have to bend the frozen disc back and forth on the corner of the kitchen countertop, pushing his entire body to break off a slice. He was only allowed to take one slice unless he wanted to catch hell from her or her whatever boyfriend.

Richland continued, “But don’t you think that he was just bullshitting you about wanting to do a reality TV show on wild boar hunting just to get a discount? Don’t go ruining the neighborhood now.”

Truxton was remembering the day. He and his grandfather had just gotten off their horses and were looking down into a valley with patches of knee-high brush and clumps of trees.

They heard the crack of gunfire, and without hesitation, his grandfather lifted the rifle from its saddle scabbard and took aim following on instinct a wild boar running hidden from view and then appearing in a flash. He waited precious seconds, and then pulled the trigger for a perfect kill shot into its head. In a quick dead slump the wild boar slipped to the ground.

“Wow, Pop, you got em!” explained Truxton. Although Richland is Truxton’s grandfather, it makes life easier for them if they just say that he is his dad. No need to tell the school that there aren’t any parents and Truxton can bypass questions like, “What happened to your dad?” and “So you don’t live with your mom?” even though mostly everybody knows that Richland is his grandfather. No one brings it up because no one likes Truxton’s mother anyway and they know that she’ll either O.D. or some lowlife boyfriend will probably kill her in a drunken rage someday.

He and his grandfather continued to watch from above, unnoticed as two men, ran like Christmas morning, to the dead animal and one followed behind and looked up to them and nodded. That was Luther who was now talking to his grandfather on the phone. To make ends meet, he is hired as a guide and he usually gets to keep the meat for himself since his clients don’t care what happens to the animals after the kill. All they do is cut off hog ears or deer antlers for souvenirs, but never the meat, they wouldn’t have enough room in their home refrigerators and where they are from they wouldn’t know how to cook it. And although Richland’s rifle shot had echoed through the valley Luther’s clients never heard it.

Truxton has never held a firearm in his hands and his grandfather doesn’t push him. The boy doesn’t want to shoot to kill, or to wound or to scare away anything, but he would probably be a good shooter, his own mother shot his dad and her best friend on one of her typical Saturday nights. She was passed out on the couch, but woke up right before they were going to take it to the bedroom. She shot her best friend first right through her face. A quick death may seem like an act of mercy, her friend didn’t see it coming, but she just really wanted to watch her man squirm and beg and cry at her feet. She shot him in the chest as he stood by the kitchen sink pleading for his life. And she had a new boyfriend by the end of the week.

No one can understand how someone so decent could have such a tramp for a daughter. Maybe Richland just spoiled her too much because she didn’t have a mother. He had to short hedge a hundred percent of his expected soybean crop and was lucky that the yield came out at a 30-cent gain. He swore that he’d never use a San Francisco lawyer ever again, but he did his job right and all she had to do was community service for possession of an unlicensed handgun. They were lucky that the deceased still had their clothes on, they called it an in-home burglary, plus she looked cute to the jurors.

“Well say Luther, thanks again, it was nothing. See you tomorrow,” concluded Richland as he hung up the phone on the kitchen wall.

Truxton’s grandfather sat at the dinner table and said, “Ah Trux, you should have started without me.”

“No Pop, but I like waiting for you and today is a special day,” said Truxton.

“Yep, certainly is, tomorrow we’ll be getting the whole hog.”