Lilith and the Pig Hunters

 

Near the back of the cemetery, where the glossy black tombs bear mostly Japanese names, Lilith and I spotted a pig at the edge of the forest. I watched the pig for a long time, as Lilith turned in the opposite direction to look at something, perhaps the small black and white cat sitting by the road toward the Temple. When we got to the top of the hill at the very back, I looked down and saw a truck in the literal muck below us. By the time we got down the hill, one young man was washing mud from the truck's wide tires; in its bed under a low roof we saw several dogs. I addressed a second young man at the front of the truck, "we saw a pig up there," and waved as vaguely as possible at the hills. "Good size?" he asked. "I don't want to bust him," I said, and Lilith and I kept going. As we walked alongside Kahekili we saw another truck, dogs in the back, heading south.