The Hunt

A while back, we got two young female ducks from a friend, and one of them flew off and got lost in a real thick part of the woods east of our land. I felt sad about her plight, and went out calling and quacking after her. I was practically swimming in an ocean of vines and logs and brush for an hour or so. She must have froze with panic in this strange and foreign environment, because I was unable to get any sign of her. I gave up and began work on our house, when suddenly I heard her call. I rushed back, but she clammed up when she heard me coming. I waited for a time in the warm sun on a high log, to see if she might forget I was there and start calling again for her friend. I felt a connection to her fear and helplessness. I really wanted to rescue her and get her into our pond with her duck friends. I eventually gave up, though, and resumed my construction project.

Then I heard the sound of wild pigs arguing in the woods south of our place, and grabbed my rifle and headed out. For me, wild pigs are food. Over a few fences and along a major pig trail, I pretty quickly came within sight of them. At first just shivering bushes and branches. Gradually their numbers became apparent through the underbrush in the woods. Several, no, many, and most of them big ones. Maybe five adults, and two junior style oinklets. They were lumbering. It is often hard for me to determine the sizes of pigs in the woods. But some of these looked big.

I began to stalk...

The alpha male snorted and charged at a somewhat smaller rival. The rival fled, thought better, and challenged another more his own size. Two much younger ones followed their mother. Some others were milling about, rooting for grubs, wagging their tails, meandering across the forest as they foraged. They were quite unaware of me. I realized that I was stalking a family. I wondered, which member of their family will be missing tonight?

My heart was pounding. In fact, I could feel my whole self was pounding. Some of the larger males continued fighting back and forth, while making their grunting shrieks. It was hard to see who was doing what, exactly. Still pounding. I spent quite a while holding still, afraid they would see me and run away, or worse, run toward me. I have heard stories of hunters getting gored by their tusks.

For some time, I stood, my consciousness intensified, in a dreamy state, stunned at the awareness of me, crouching here, the hunter, and this herd, this family, the hunted.

Slowly, crawling closer to the herd, I tried to time my movements with their fights and snorts, to conceal my stick crackling steps. I want to get closer for a good shot, but I really don’t want to get closer. When I get close to big pigs, I often realize that much of me wants to flee these big black toothy hairy beasts. I keep making sure that I’m behind a tree for cover, and also to scramble up if things get scary. I sat there, behind a Hala tree, aiming for a long time. Aiming and aiming and waiting and waiting. Heart pounding, amazed at what I am doing, about to do. I keep aiming through the underbrush at these black creatures, waiting for a certain hit, following them with my sights, until at some moment, my finger knows to pull the trigger.

My eyes, my hands, my finger, my pounding heart must have been aiming at the biggest one. He lay down and screamed and screamed, like he was real mad and scared, but didn’t move. The other 5 or 6 or 7 pigs bolted, paused to look, and bolted again in various directions. As I approached, I shot him twice more in the head, remembering the shooters admonition, “anything worth shooting once is worth shooting twice” (It turns out the first shot went through the lung and spine) Once the others had disappeared, I walked up to him,(he was still convulsing) and thought, oh, goodness, he is much, much bigger than I am. With his black bristly hair, huge head, and bloody tusks, even dead he looked dangerous. I felt dwarfed, tiny, no match for this warrior.

Once he stopped spasming and sighed into death, I made to drag him home. I grabbed his “ankles” with both hands and gave a heave and he slid about a foot. The reality of his size just sunk in; this would be a long drag home. By the time I had hauled him 20 feet, my chest was heaving, and the ground was all scraped up from my slipping sliding feet. He is way too heavy. I sized him up again; he looked wide and long. I felt in my pocket to find a small, much too small, folding pocket knife. I looked around at the clouds of mosquitos all around us; then back at the pig. There’s no two ways about it, I’m going to have to dig in and reduce the weight.

A few minutes later I was elbow deep in blood and heart and hot intestines, kneeling on the carcass to keep it belly up. Down past the kidneys, slicing away all around the colon. Carefully feeling, cutting, feeling all around the diaphragm muscle below the lungs. Loosening the organs into one big slippery, hot mass. Tugging at the colon from the inside until it let go. Reaching up and slicing through the trachea and esophagus from the inside, until finally I could scoop this jumbo size, slimy snake of viscera out of his big body cavity and onto the ground. I stood up, smeared the warm blood from my hands and forearms onto my shirt and pants, and sized up the situation. Okay, I lightened my load by about 40 pounds of excess baggage. I Put my rifle over my shoulders, and gave another heave ho. Geez, it feels just as heavy. I’m guessing well over two hundred pounds at this point. I thought, if I leave him here, will some pigs come back and eat him? I just accepted my situation and dragged at the pace I was able. At a rate of about 2 to 3 feet per pull, I got the boar over rocks, roots, logs, branches and a small crevice, and into a clearing behind my neighbor’s land and walked home to get a cart.

After a skinning and butchering session with my friend Ian, the meat was then soaked in ocean water brine in our fridge. After a week, we stuffed most of it through our manual meat grinder, bagged up the rest, and  packed it into the freezer. Then, feast for three months and repeat.

By the way, the next morning the lost duck was in our pond, frolicking with the others.

 

Scott Middlekauff lives with his wife Karin Payne on their 22 acre sustainable farmstead in Kapoho. You can read their fascinating blog at EveningRainFarm.com.