4. Waterpower #7
Colors began to fill the eastern sky, fingers of light shooting forth over cloud remnants left from storms that had missed them.
Truly, the Great God had made the world good.
Not easy, but good. Cool breeze moved, easing some of the work.
Birds began to sing, waking with the sun. A distant rooster caroled to the world.
He straightened up, easing a little catch in his back, then shaking out his hands. Twisting wire, even with gloves on, was not fun. Everything had gone well thus far. He tapped one post, just in case.
Thud. Magic hit the warning shield on the farm. "Oh, pig crap," he snarled. "Go soak your head." He vented his frustration by carrying four panels from the stack and wiring them into place. No further stray spells bounced.
At least the chutes were done. The sun had been over the horizon for an hour, more or less, when his father announced, "A bite to eat, then the Large Blacks."
Hot, sausage-laden biscuits, coffee, spice bread with preserves, and other good things filled the pre-breakfast hole in his middle. An'stache glanced to the east, then back at the food, then east once more.
"Problem?" their father demanded.
An'stache signed, "Uncertain - muddled tracks." The others shrugged and returned to food and coffee. How could the workers of shadow live without coffee? Or alcohol, for that matter. Lukaz refilled his father's cup, then finished the last of his bread and jam.
"All ready?" his father called at last after they tested all the panels and posts, and opened the end gate.
"Anno," An'stache called. He had the prod and stood at the Y, ready to steer the first swine.
"Here they come." His father disappeared into the shelter, rattling a bucket. They heard grunts, then the sound of the gate opening. "Soooo, pig, ja, soooo pig!"
Grunts, a few squeals, and the sound of hoofs on hard-packed ground heralded the flow of floppy-eared black pigs.
Lukaz hurried to the pasture with his bucket.
Large, dark swine trotted, then flowed down the chute.
An'stache nudged a few with the prod, encouraging them to go the right direction instead of trying to climb or break out of the chute.
The largest animals came first, then smaller.
Pop, another sting of magic hit, this his personal shields. "Ottoman's bastard," Lukaz snarled. "What?" A man ran toward them across the grass! How had he gotten into the pasture so far? Oh crap.
"You bastards! I'll show you, getting into my business and calling the state on me." The stocky, overall-clad man hurried toward him, waving something. "Leave my spells alo—shit!"
Schwartzl, the small boar, couldn't stop on the dew-wet grass. Seven-hundred pounds of pig hit the man, knocked him flat and kept going. Three other pigs trampled the fool before he dragged himself to the fence and out of the rush.
Call for help or point and laugh? With a grumbled sigh Lukaz fished his phone out of an inner pocket on his jacket and called the sheriff's non-emergency number.
"Good morning. I need to report a trespasser.
Yes, yes, please." He glanced at the whimpering stranger.
The man clutched one knee as he lay on the ground, and his right shoulder didn't look correct.
"Ah, so you know, he has been stepped on by four large pigs, and probably needs medical attention.
No, ma'am, the pigs are fine. Yes, 44073 County Road J as in Junior, the old 'Hannes Baum farm. Yes. Thank you."
Karlu and An'stache hefted the trespasser out of the pasture and sat him down beside the farmyard fence, then went back to moving pigs.
Hanna'lore emerged from the kitchen with her shotgun, and minded the unwanted visitor until the deputy arrived, along with an ambulance.
Lukaz's father met the deputy as two paramedics checked the injured interloper.
"Sorry to bother you," Lukaz Senior began.
"You said trespassing, sir?" The deputy nodded to the stranger.
"Yes, Deputy. We were moving pigs into the pasture, and my sons saw someone coming toward us, yelling threats. We couldn't stop the pigs, and a small boar stepped on him, then two gilts and a sow. The boar weighs around seven hundred pounds."
"Small boar. Seven hundred pounds," the deputy repeated, thin eyebrows rising as one of the paramedics whistled quietly, then went back to the patient.
"Someone from this farm interfered with my business, Deputy," the stranger called. "Called the county claiming that I allowed dangerous chemical into a waterway, then moved the fence off the property line and into my pasture. I came to talk to him, and he let the pigs attack me."
The deputy and one of the paramedics frowned.
The other shook her head, but continued splinting the man's left leg.
If the pigs had truly attacked him, he'd not be alive and talking.
Lukaz twitched at the memory of what had happened to Oskar's second brother when he stepped on the piglet hidden in straw.
The sow hadn't left much to identify. Another reason to raise calmer, heritage breeds.
"Which way did you travel to come onto the farm, sir?" the deputy asked.
The man tried to gesture with his right arm. He yelped, then used the left. "That way, along the public path. They turned the pigs loose deliberately."
Lukaz found things to do away from the arrest. "Trespassing, making threats, and whatever the county decides for the chemical spills," Lukaz Senior reported after eating half his breakfast. "Broken knee and dislocated shoulder."
"Schwartzl has big feet," Hanna'lore observed, then passed the platter of homemade sausages. Lukaz snagged one before handing it to his father.
"He does when they are stepping on someone." Their father shook his head. "Was fur'n idiot," he sighed in German. What a fool.
Lukaz agreed entirely. The hot, spicy sausage tasted very, very good. "Which pig was this?" he asked after two more bites.
Karlu smiled, baring all his teeth. "Striper, the sow that kept digging out of the south pasture." He lifted a laden fork. "Excellent sausage, Mother, Hanna'lore."
It was indeed. Revenge tasted like rich, fatty, homemade sausage, buckwheat pancakes with lots of butter and jam, and fruit preserves.