It has a lot to do with understanding the pig. Or pigs in general.

Fern's pig.

Does a pig know what is going to happen to it? A pig doesn't need freedom. A pig needs sleep and regular meals. The animals mutter curses. A pig needs the knife, a touch of the short sharp shock. They back away from the light of the door, from the swaying specter. Lurvy is a featureless scarecrow. What does the farmer really bring, except death? The pig knows. The pig knows as much as anyone. The geese have taken over a corner of the barn. The gander hisses at Lurvy. The mother sits on her nest of eggs. Geese don't peck. They bite. Lurvy counts seven eggs. The horses are more receptive: two wise old gray mares puzzle oats.

The Italian wanted to cut our throats.

We took care of him.

Bray and shuffle in narrow stalls, eyes the colour of a deepening chocolate wound.

Don't be so sure-sure-sure, mother goose quacks. Lurvy doesn't hear her, just quacking.

"You go tell him," Fern says to Avery. Her body pressed against the grass, tickled, impatient. Avery has bruises around his neck, and other marks nobody can see. Lurvy watches him. The boy is a cipher, the boy will bleed. Boys and girls. Lurvy holds a hunk of some strange white cheese lined with blue ribbons near his mouth. It stinks like the cleft between Mrs. Arable's fat legs. She is trying to kill him. Poison. Lifestyle. He shrugs, wipes his hands on the front bib of his overalls. Big hands.

The afternoon is a silence in the air, in his ear.

All day whispers. Assertions of voice.

Memories.

The animals twitch and cock their ears into the absence.

Accusation is promise.

Avery nods like a maniac.

"Gonna rain," Lurvy says, cracking his strong knuckles. "You best get back to the house."

"I seen the pig," Avery keeps saying. The little pip squeak.

"Seen the pig," Lurvy mimics. The breeze carries the smell of barn. Avery is too young.

"A pig's not a pet," Lurvy says. Avery is going to run. Lurvy raises his voice: "When I find the pig, I'll catch him, and I'll fatten him up and when the Fall comes we'll bleed him dead for dinner. Fall's pig slaughtering time around here, always has been."

Fern presses against the earth. She feels life, a damp excitement through her.

"Come on," Lurvy says. His heart gives him pain in wet weather. The rain touches him like the tips of fingers.

A pig knows rain as darkness. A pig will creep out into the open when it rains. A pig is fooled by rain: a clear element that seems so filthy. Rain means black muck, sealing warm mud. A pig can't resist mud. Flopping around in a concave impression, wallowing in the dark water it traps long after the storm.

Lurvy tries out a few calls he knows.

"Sueweee," he says. "Here piggy piggy pig."

"How about some breakfast, Wilbur?" Lurvy asks.

Where is the pig?

Lurvy knows pigs. His Father with a hooked knife. One ear screaming.

Is there really a pig?

He leads the way to the old barn and around it. Behind the rotting barn is a hill. They climb the hill. On the other side of the hill is the farm's dump. Lurvy used to steal Father's empty bottles of moonshine and climb to the top of the hill. From there, he would hurl them high in the sun and watch them crash on the rocks with an ear-splitting shower that sent rodents and roaches scurrying.

A rat runs out. A fat one. Screams to his brethren, longs for freedom. Every farm has a hidden dump, being so much about discarded relics and time not quite passing by. Lurvy shakes his head. A buzzing thick twitch like forbidden lust. He has to concentrate. To catch a pig in its wallow. Fat rain drops splattering off Avery's head.

The crops will go in. Lurvy is sick. He is tired. But he will plant. And he will harvest under a russet autumn sun. She is out there, watching with her hands in the pockets of her short-shorts, a piece of grass being slowly whittled down between her teeth (fine ivory proportions). Lurvy will have what he wants. He just has to catch the pig. A man can't expect. Too many men expect. One thing about Lurvy: He is an earner. He believes in life, reputation, struggle, success. He takes the rope from Avery's hand and makes a noose.

Lurvy moves through heaps of trash. Occasionally, he recognizes a particular item he has dragged to the top of that hill in another time -- the sound of splintering pasts spooking the corn, Father watching, Father believed in waste, oh yes, farmers in those days used what they needed and got rid of what they didn't. They needed almost everything. They loved their waste.

At the hollow of the dump where the slope bottoms out and begins to climb, there is a clearing. A muddy depression surrounded by the odours of the Arable's garbage. This is the place, Lurvy thinks. A bush has grown up out of one side of the depression. Degenerate roots, armour plated. He crouches behind. Avery keeps his distance. The boy is quiet. A boy should be more excited on a pig hunt.

"How'd they die, anyway?" Lurvy asks while he fixes the noose. "Your parents."

Lurvy behind the bush. A rustling. The rain begins to tumble in sheets.

Cautiously, the blunt snout of a creamy pig noses itself out of a bag of the Arable's garbage, mango peels, a dry hunk of gruyere, the mottled skin of what was once a slab of smoked salmon. The pig bites down on a tampon. Too much paper. He drops it, tongue going thick and mealy. He's full, anyway; Freedom inflates him. The experience is grand. He's some kind of pig. A bit of a runt, but with a real slick look to him. That Wilbur. The pig steps into the clearing, water past his hooves. He tosses around, almost dancing. Lurvy waits. Rain falls. Wilbur gets on his back and starts massaging his creamy shoulders against the slick mud, forming a luscious layer of clay that will keep his wallow wet and greasy long after the sun comes out. Enjoy it while it lasts, Lurvy thinks. He gets the noose over his shoulder. Wilbur wallowing. Rain in monochrome bursts. The pig stands up, straight, proud. Lurvy swings the rope, feels a push from behind and trips face first into the bush.

"Run Wilbur," Fern yells.

Wilbur stands there, a look of pride on his porky face. Lurvy thrashes out of the bush, his cheeks burn, he has to get the pig, the crops have to go into the ground.

"Here Wilbur piggy piggy pig," he says. He's got the Arable's left-overs in a bucket. "Sooowee piggy Wilbur pig..."

Wilbur advances. The smell, oh the smell! Veal scallopine and pasta in light tomato cream sauce, steamed broccoli florets in a ginger-cognac confit, garlic bread all soaked through with espresso grounds, the finest take-out Italian in the county, Wilbur has never smelled anything like it.

"Here pig," Lurvy sings. Fern watches, a smile through the cracks of her fingers. Wilbur gets closer and closer. "Good piggy piggy pig," Lurvy says. Fern stands just behind him. He feels her the way he feels his own skin, wet and clinging. The pig dips into the bucket. Lurvy tackles him, yanks the noose around his neck. He stands up. His face is burning. The pig crying, screaming, flashing white milk skin - a pink underside, everything slick in the rain.

"That's some pig," Lurvy says, turning behind him.

Fern is gone.