There was the story of the man who went to pieces, and there was the story of the high and iron fence. There was the saga of Uncle Simon, the Hen Woods burning, and the hunt for Hog Bellman. He had them all. Hours, weeks, months — a life — they’d cost him. Were they all as wrong as the one about the cradle? Well, he’d said he’d see the summer under, and he had… a small success. He’d see… It was on the morning of the sixth of April… on the morning of the sixth… Dickie Frankmann found two of his Tamworth hogs with their throats cut. That made, between Huff and Staub and Gustin, eight in six days, and ernie said Hog Bellman, mad as a man can be, had done it. Curtis Chamlay rode out to Frankmann’s as he’d ridden out to Huff’s and out to Staub’s and Gustin’s, Frankmann riding by him, standing in the stirrups too much. He looked at the carcasses and blood. There wasn’t a print though the sty was mud and Chamlay’s weight forced water to the edges of his boots. So far it’s only Tamworths, Dickie Frankmann said, and there ain’t many of them. What has a ghost got against English pigs?

William H. Gass, Omensetter’s Luck

Image: Mu Pan, “My Little Pigs” (2020)