Pig to the Slaughter

The truck trudged along the dirt road at a steady pace. With every bump, a dozen squeals from the back rang out. Each one reverberated in Pala’s chest. She kept the steering steady, swallowing the lump in her throat. You’d think she’d be ready for this by now.

Next to her, her father lay back quietly in the passenger seat. He had his straw hat over his eyes to block the harsh sun. She thought to say something, but didn’t. She knew what he’d say, chiding her for having a heart for the pigs. Instead, she grabbed the tobacco jar in the glove box and palmed a pinch to chew. The acrid juice felt an appropriate taste to taste. A familiar calm spread over her.

The town, and the slaughterhouse, was still a few hours away. The truck trudged along in silence.

At some point, Pala’s father awoke with a grunt. Old men sounded remarkably like beasts sometimes. “Still a ways out, pappy,” she said. He grunted in acknowledgement.

“Pull over in a minute. Need to piss,” he said gruffly. She slowed down and parked the truck to the side, so he could get off. The sun beat down mercilessly, but he didn’t seem to mind as he relieved himself a few feet away in the sparse grass.

In the truck, Pala took a drink of water and wiped away the sweat. The pigs in the back were squealing, but she knew she couldn’t do much else for them. Pappy wasn’t a fan of the AC; said it wasted too much fuel. She had to fight him into buying a specialised carrier vehicle, but he relented when one too many pigs died from heat in the older, enclosed truck.

Pappy returned and they started moving again. They didn’t say a single word to each other.

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Fourteen years ago, Pala had turned ten, which meant she was old enough to start helping on the farm. She carried hay and feed, scooped dung, and refilled water. Theirs was a remote farm home, far from the town. As such, she grew up unschooled and without friends. The closest thing she got to meeting new people was talking to the grocer’s boys when they came by once a week to deliver supplies. She only ever exchanged a few words with them.

Pala’s mother had passed from consumption when she was young. With all the work on the farm, time spent with Pappy always meant labour. She was careful not to play with her dolls during the day, lest Pappy get angry.

She knew he loved her. He took care of her, he fed her. So she loved him enough to live by his rules. She woke up at four every day. Used exactly the same measure of coffee in the morning to avoid waste. Cleaned the pig enclosures back to front. He always taught her to treat the animals as goods. They were pig farmers, and pigs would always go for slaughter. That’s how they earned their living.

One day, she’d finished all her work early, and there wasn’t much else to do. She took a stick and tried to get the pigs to follow it. She was delighted when they did, and she ran around a bit, forcing them to chase. She let two catch her, and rubbed their backs before leading them back to the pen. It was only about twenty minutes or so, but she found Pappy waiting for her at the pig pen. He had a scowl on his face.

“What did I tell you about playing with the beasts?” he said. He towered over her, taller by at least two feet.

“I was just stretching my legs, Pappy. I didn’t mean anything by it—“ she started saying, but was stopped short when he slapped her hard across the face. She fell to the muddy floor, and didn’t dare to look up. But that was apparently enough to upset him further. Grabbing her by the arm, he lifted her up. He dragged her into the pen.

“Pappy, I’m sorry!” she said, but he didn’t listen.

“Ain’t nothin’ to be done, Pala. Y’know what I gotta do,” he said. Throwing her onto a pile of hay, he glowered, “Don’t you move.”

He rounded up the pigs and put them back in their enclosures. “Since you want to play with the pigs, you can spend the night with them,” he said.

“Wait, Pappy, I’m sorry! Don’t leave me in here!” she shouted. He walked away and pulled down the corrugated tin door. The barn was instantly dark, and Pala heard the latch being bolted on the door, the shuffling of his feet, and then silence. The only sound now was the occasional grunt or squeal from the dozens of pigs in here. It stank to high hell.

She sat hugging her knees in the dark pig pen, shaken by the interaction. Every quick breath drew in the smell of the pen. At some point, she threw up on the floor from nausea. Some of the pigs nuzzled the edge of their enclosures out of curiosity, but mostly left her alone.

It took her a few minutes to calm down. It’s not like she was in an unknown place. Pulling herself together, Pala found the tap in the corner and washed herself off and the ground where she’d thrown up. She forced herself to stand and found the hay fork. Finding a section, she cleared it as best as she could, and fetched some clean hay for herself.

Pappy didn’t bring her any dinner, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She would sleep in fits and bursts, her stomach growling, and wake up several times in the night. Pappy’s words reverberated in her thoughts as she flitted in and out of consciousness. “Y’know what I gotta do.”

---

Back in the present, Pala kept her hands steady on the wheel. Next to her, Pappy was looking for an excuse to grumble. “Drive faster, Pala.”

“Driving as fast as I can, Pappy. We’ll get there when we get there. Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t give me sass, girl. I’ll throw you out of the truck.”

She didn’t even flinch. “And then what? You’ll drive to town yourself with your bad back?” When he had no answer except to grumble, she continued, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” They both remained silent after that.

This was the first time Pala was doing a slaughterhouse delivery. While she’d been working with the pigs for over a decade, she’d never wanted to take part in this. She wasn’t naive, they were pig farmers. That’s how they made their living. But she liked the rearing and raising, not this.

But last month, Pappy threw out his back something fierce, and was in bed for weeks. Something called a hernia, according to the visiting doctor, who told them both that Pappy would have to rest for months. Four weeks later, Pappy was in the truck with Pala. Said he’d never missed a delivery and never would. She knew better than to argue with him.

A shrill beeping behind them caught her attention. She looked in the rear view mirror and it seemed to be a car. She steered to one side to let it pass. It honked at her again, and then again. She didn’t understand what this guy wanted.

A motorbike pulled up from behind the car and drove up to the side of the truck. The rider threw a stone into her window, narrowly missing her head.

Pala instinctively veered hard. The truck came dangerously close to tipping over as it drove off the road on to the grass. She had to try hard to keep it upright. She slammed the brake and came to a halt. Pappy was screaming but she didn’t register it, trying to understand what happened. By this time, the car and bike had pulled up, along with two other bikers. She yelled out the window, “Are you crazy?!”

The five punks looked young… and dumb. Bad combination. “Shut up, bitch! Step out of the truck.” Next to her, Pappy rummaged below his seat. Within seconds, he pulled out his shotgun. At the same time, Pala opened the glove box and palmed her pistol.

“Now I reckon,” shouted Pappy from his seat, “that you boys made an honest mistake. I’ve got a bad back, and if I have to climb down from this truck, it’s gonna be a bad day for y’all.” He cocked his shotgun and made sure they heard. There was a pause, before they both heard the unmistakable sound of a number of firearms being clicked and readied.

Pala felt her back drenched in sweat. She considered her options. Should she capitulate and surrender? They were young; it would probably make them worse. She needed to cow them. Show of confidence, then.

She shouted at the highwaymen, “We’re pig farmers, ya morons! What’re you gonna do with our livestock, make bacon sandwiches for yer mams?” The pigs were creating a ruckus in the back, as if to underscore her point.

In lieu of an answer, there was a shot into the body of the truck, and a pig’s alarmed shriek. Pala saw red. “You motherfuckers!” she yelled, composure gone. She shot out of the window and hit someone, but didn’t wait to see. She ducked down into her seat and looked right, but Pappy was gone, his door ajar. From the back, she heard a shotgun go off, followed by screams and shots of retaliation. She cursed, and shot through the window again.

Nobody prepares you for how loud and disorienting a gun fight is. The next few seconds were a blur for Pala. “How had this got out of hand so badly?” she vaguely remembered thinking, but the rest was a haze of fear and dust and gunshots. Everything was loud and overwhelming, but just as suddenly as it started, it was done. Her ears were ringing and her vision was blurred. The smell of iron was in her nostrils.

With bated breath, she looked up — the windshield had shattered. Dust had kicked up very quickly. She coughed as she opened her door and fell out. She shakily patted herself down and found no wounds. Her senses were still addled, but the lack of pain told her she was okay.

Only a few feet away, bodies lay motionless on the dirt. Pala, still disoriented, stumbled forward, looking for Pappy, and found him leaned against the back side of the truck. His shotgun was ten feet away on the floor, with one of his hands still wrapped around it. He cradled a stump spurting blood over him, pressing it against a wound in his gut.

Pala dragged herself forward. The smell of blood and dirt made her even more nauseous. Something about it triggered in the back of her mind, and she fell to all fours and threw up. She looked up at Pappy, barely moving, panting heavily, his skin flushed red and pink. He drooled on himself, struggling to move. His eyes were glazed over.

She was in a fugue state. She crawled forward, her breathing slowing as she stood up. She picked up the shotgun and turned to her father. Her hair covered her eyes, but if one could see them, they’d remark how dilated and full they were. They’d hear her whisper something barely perceptible. “Ain’t nothing to be done, Pappy. Y’know what I gotta do.”

---

Late at night, later than anticipated, a delivery truck rolled into the slaughterhouse. “Finally!” said the proprietor with barely concealed irritation, but stopped when he saw its windshield broken. The driver signalled for the wide gate to be opened, and backed the truck into it. When she opened the door to let the pigs out, it was dark inside. The proprietor couldn’t see the blood coating the floor of the truck bed.

“Um, are you alright? I was expecting your father,” he said sheepishly.

“Pappy threw out his back, so I’m making the rounds. There was some trouble on the road.”

“Sorry to hear that. Any way we can help—“ he said, before she cut him off.

“Yes, let’s make this quick.”

“Right.”

She stepped aside as the proprietor whistled to his handlers, who gently led the pigs out of the truck into a holding pen. They saw blood pooling out onto the floor, but held their tongues when they saw her glaring at them. The proprietor hastily fetched the payment, and Pala took it without a word.

“Could you do one more thing for me? Dump this in your furnace, please,” she said, handing him a small bag.

“Sure thing,” he said. She nodded, and without another word, got back in the truck and drove off, leaving a small trail of blood from the back.

The proprietor headed back to his factory. Curious, he opened the drawstring of the bag and emptied the contents into his hand. Immediately, he recoiled in terror and dropped them. Picked clean of flesh, six sets of dentures fell to the ground.

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