"What's he say?" Abagail asked.
"He says..." Ralph cleared his throat; the feather stuck in the band of his hat jiggled. "He says that he don't believe in God." The message relayed, he looked unhappily down at his shoes and waited for the explosion.
But she only chuckled, got up, and walked across to Nick. She took one of his hands and patted it. "Bless you, Nick, but that don't matter. He believes in you."
They stayed at Abby Freemantle's place the next day, and it was the best day any of them could remember since the superflu had drawn away, like the waters going down from Mount Ararat. The rain had stopped sometime during the early hours of the morning, and by nine o'clock the sky was a pleasant Midwest mural of sun and broken clouds. The corn twinkled away in all directions like a ransom of emeralds. It was cooler than it had been for weeks.
Tom Cullen spent the morning running up and down the rows of corn, his arms outstretched, scaring up droves of crows. Gina McCone sat contentedly in the dirt by the tire swing, playing with a large number of paper dolls Abagail had found at the bottom of a trunk in her bedroom closet. A little earlier, she and Tom had had a pleasant game of cars and trucks around the Fisher-Price garage Tom had taken from the five-and-dime in May, Oklahoma. Tom did what Gina wanted him to do willingly enough.
Dick Ellis, the vet, came diffidently to Mother Abagail and asked her if anyone in the area had kept pigs.
"Why, the Stoners always had pigs," she said. She was sitting on the porch in her rocker, chording her guitar and watching Gina at play in the yard, her broken leg in its cast stuck out stiffly in front of her.
"Think any of them might still be alive?"
"You'd have to go see. Might be. Might be they've bust down their pens and gone hogwild." Her eyes gleamed. "Might also be I know a fella who dreamed about pork chops last night."
"Could be you do," Dick said.
"You ever slaughtered a hog?"
"No, ma'am," he said, grinning broadly now. "Wormed a few, but haven't slaughtered ary hog. I was always what you'd call nonviolent."
"Do you think you and Ralph there could stand a woman foreman?"
"Could be," he said.
Twenty minutes later the three of them were off, Abagail riding between the two men in the Chevy's cab with her cane planted regally between her knees. At the Stoners' they found two yearling pigs in the back pen, healthy and full of beans. It appeared that, when the feed had given out, they had taken to dining on their weaker and less fortunate pen-mates.
Ralph set up Reg Stoner's chainfall in the barn, and at Abagail's direction, Dick was finally able to get a rope firmly around the back leg of one of the yearlings. Squealing and thrashing, it was yanked into the barn and hung upside down from the chainfall.
Ralph came out of the house with a butcher knife three feet long - That ain't a knife, that's a regular bayernet, praise God, Abby thought.
"You know, I don't know if I can do this," he said.
"Well, give her here, then," Abagail said, and then held out her hand. Ralph looked doubtfully at Dick. Dick shrugged. Ralph handed the knife over.
"Lord," Abagail said, "we thank Thee for the gift we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Bless this pig that it might nourish us, amen. Stand clear, boys, she's gonna go a gusher."
She cut the pig's throat with one practiced sweep of the knife - some things you never forgot, no matter how old you got - and then stepped back as quick as she could.
"You got that fire going under the kettle?" she asked Dick. "Nice hot fire out there in the dooryard?"
"Yes, ma'am," Dick said respectfully, unable to take his eyes from the pig.
"You got those brushes?" she asked Ralph.
Ralph displayed two big scrub brushes with stiff yellow bristles.
"Well then, you want to haul him over and dump him in. After he's boiled awhile, those bristles will scrub right off. After that you can peel old Mr. Hog just like a banana."
They both looked a trifle green at the prospect.
"Lively," she said. "You can't eat him with his jacket on. Got to get him undressed first."
Ralph and Dick Ellis looked at each other, gulped, and began to lower the pig from the chainfall. They were done by three that afternoon, back at Abagail's by four with a truckload of meat, and there were fresh pork chops for dinner. Neither of the men ate very well, but Abagail put away two chops all by herself, relishing the way the crisp fat crackled between her dentures. There was nothing like fresh meat you'd seen to yourself.
It was sometime after nine o'clock. Gina was asleep, and Tom Cullen had dozed off in Mother Abagail's rocker on the porch. Soundless lightning flickered against the sky far to the west. The other adults were gathered in the kitchen, except for Nick, who had gone for a walk. Abagail knew what the boy was wrestling with, and her heart went out to him.