Isabella moved to block the entrance to her paddock as Ozzie blocked the only other way out. With renewed life she stood there, her immense four hundred pound frame looming and holding Blake in place. She looked past Blake to her baby, her son who she feared was dead along with so many others. “Ozzie!” Isabella said, wanting to embrace him, to feel his warmth against her shoulder. Ozzie, too, had wanted the same thing for so long. But now, in this moment, he was not his mama’s boy, and he didn’t acknowledge Isabella. Instead, he guarded the cage opening, his shoulders taking up the width of it as he pierced Blake with his eyes. The man who had denied them their freedom, their lives together, now stood trapped before him.

“This is the monster,” Ozzie told himself. “The monster of all monsters.” Ozzie opened his mouth and flashed his gleaming tusks. Blake’s eyes widened at the sight of the rippers. Tusks nearing six inches in length that looked sharper than any weapon Blake had ever seen. Ozzie moved his lower jaw left and right, back and forth. As he did, he tilted his head left then right as if he was in a trance, all the while never taking his eyes from Blake’s. Back and forth Ozzie swayed his head, a pendulum of death that hypnotized Blake. He lifted his feet, his hooves, and pawed at the ground. Blake felt that he was being taunted. That if he made a move, ANY move, Ozzie would shred him. That if he stood there, Ozzie would attack him just the same.

With nothing else to protect himself, Blake held the flimsy half sheet of plywood in front of him. A mature, wild hog stood on each side of him. He knew the board was no match for one, let alone two. There was nowhere up or around to go. Looking down at the knife on the ground, Blake wished he had it, but had no idea what he would do with it now if he did. Ozzie saw Blake’s gaze and took one step forward to loom over the knife, mocking Blake in a language that he couldn’t understand, as if to say, “Is this what you want? Why don’t you reach for it?”

Ozzie taunted him, dared him, begged Blake to make a move. He wanted Blake to charge just as the coyotes had charged. Blake pressed his back against the long side of the cage and felt his heart pound so hard that he glanced down to see if it had beaten through his chest.

A raspy, menacing breath came from Ozzie’s mouth as he flared his nostrils at Blake.

“Ozzie,” Isabella called, gently.

He kept his gaze on Blake, ignoring his mother’s call. He was intent on tearing into Blake so badly, ripping him to shreds for what he had done to everyone. Feelings he had never had before brewed inside him like a hurricane of rage and hatred.

“Ozzie! Don’t do it!” Isabella was louder now, pleading with him.

Ozzie stepped closer to Blake, close enough to touch the board with his snout. One half inch of plywood was all that separated Ozzie from Blake’s legs, the half sheet only rising to just over Blake’s knees. Ozzie stuck his snout a foot away from Blake’s groin and sniffed.

Blake panicked. He raised the sheet and kicked the plywood hard into Ozzie’s snout. Infuriated, Ozzie rammed right into the board, just as he had rammed into the stump, and penetrated the plywood as easily as a needle going into a balloon. Blake held on for dear life, taking splinters in his palms as he gripped with all his might. He looked down to see that one of Ozzie’s rippers had come clean through the board and tore his pant leg above his knee. Blake felt a sudden burning sensation and saw blood seep through his jeans.

“Shit!” Blake said. He panicked even more, and lifted the toe of his steel-toe boot to support the board so he could push the board down to the ground. Ozzie freed his tusk and retreated slightly to reassess his attack.

A blurry black mass suddenly swooshed in front of Blake’s face from above as a raven descended and besieged him, shrieking and tormenting him in his cage of hell. Blake tucked into a fetal position behind the board and found his face only inches from Ozzie’s. His eyes widened at the sight of Ozzie’s right ripper, the tip smeared red with Blake’s blood. Ozzie tasted the blood, smacked, and began swaying at Blake once more as his breath smothered Blake’s face. Blake lunged back against the cage.

The taste of blood crazed Ozzie. He pawed the ground and kicked up dirt.

“OZZIE!” Isabella pleaded once more. “We’re NOT like them, Ozzie. We don’t torture others. We just want to be left alone.”

Isabella’s pleas penetrated Ozzie’s concentration. Ozzie broke his gaze from Blake and dropped his eyes to the ground. He snorted and turned his head slightly, enough to see both his mother and to see Blake.

“Let’s just go,” she repeated.

“Where’s Felipe?” Ozzie asked sternly, keeping his gaze centered on Blake, who stood nearly breathless between two wild, black hogs that were grunting to one another, as if they were talking. As if they could communicate, share ideas, and plan an attack.

Isabella hung her head and began to cry. “He’s dead, Ozzie! Everyone’s dead! We’re all that’s left. But you can’t—”

Ozzie fumed and started panting quickly. He turned back to Blake, to let him see the hatred in his swirling eyes. “But nothing, mom! This is the monster that killed my father, that killed Felipe.” Ozzie pawed the ground and prepared to blitz.

“OZZIE, it won’t bring back your father!” Isabella shouted. “It won’t bring back Felipe. It won’t bring anyone back! It will only make you like them.”

Ozzie panted, pawed and swayed.

“Ozzie, I won’t have it! I want no part of any more killing, any more oppression. Any more hatred! I’m leaving this place with or without you.”

Ozzie fumed and lurched forward. Blake flinched and pulled back. Ozzie hit the board, but stopped, not ramming it with much effort as his mother’s words had momentarily thwarted his attack. He was only toying with Blake, taking delight in scaring him.

Blake still had his head turned with his eyes flinched as Isabella pushed past him and shoved Ozzie back. She walked through the gate and tasted freedom for the first time since she was kidnapped from Ossabaw Island, almost two years before.

Ozzie lunged forward again and pinned Blake between the board and the cage. He turned to see his mother walking away, alone. Ozzie stood eye level to Blake’s meaty thighs, easily within reach over the torn sheet of plywood. He looked up at the man who stood before him, seeing not a terrifying monster, but a terrified, quivering man. He looked back at his mother and slowly took a step backwards. Then another. He turned, walked through the gate, and stood on the other side, turning to shoot Blake a final look, a final warning.

Then, Ozzie walked into the wilderness with his mother.

Blake collapsed onto the ground. His hands shook violently but still clutched the board as he watched the pair lumber side by side into the woods. He looked at his hands, his knuckles white from gripping the board with all his might, and he finally loosened his grip. He looked back at the pigs, thinking that these two captured pigs had found what he was now in want of. Freedom. Refuge. Just to live simply and to be left alone. Blake felt that he was the one now imprisoned, only he had built the walls and incarcerated himself with his greed.

He remembered that there was a third, a red-haired Tamworth breed of pig out there somewhere, one of only three that he had been raising before he ever started messing with these wild pigs. Back when he raised only a few pigs for Angelica and himself. She, too, had escaped and was out there somewhere. They had each found a way to win their freedom.

Blake prayed that he could win his as he looked down at the blood soaking through his jeans.

Chapter 30