Liberty (3 page)

Santiago hung back and let them talk.

“Oh, mother, it's the life I've dreamed of: poetry, music, maps, adventure.”

“Do it right,” her mother said fiercely. “For all of us.”

Penelope understood; she would be the only one to escape the common fate of all pigs on farms, the only one to have a bright future.

“It makes my heart full to hear you talk of adventure.”  Her mother's voice broke, and tears filled her eyes. “Full with the joy we've had in this pigsty, and empty with the joy at letting you go make your way in the wider world.”

No
, Penelope thought.
I won't be the only one to live a full life
. Amazingly, her mother had done that, even here on the farm. Penelope studied her with a new respect.

The old sow continued:  “When you finally settle down and have piglets of your own, will you name one after me?”

The plump old sow was wrinkled and tired-looking, as usual. But she had always stood by Penelope, making sure she had milk and slops, even though she had to fight eight other brothers and sisters.  “I don't think I know your name. You're just— Mother.”

“Victoria Marie.”

In the starlight, her mother's damp eyelashes looked long and thick, her eyes soft and deep. Victoria Marie must have been a beautiful piglet and yearling.

The sow turned back to her sleeping piglets.

Penelope called, her voice rough with emotion, “I love you, Victoria Marie.”

“I love you, Penelope Grace.” The sow gave Penelope a gentle smile, then nosed the piglets and lay down beside them with a sigh.

Santiago turned his face, again, toward the eastern star, and Penelope followed as he led the way toward the deep blue sea.

S
antiago Talbert and Penelope Grace
were married by the first owl they met in a brief but satisfying ceremony, with ten bats and two raccoons as witnesses. Afterward, they danced with joy under the North Star till dawn, and then slept for the day.

For the next month, the Talberts traveled east toward the river and the wider world, traveling by night and sleeping by day. Anticipation filled Penelope each evening. Perhaps tonight they would crest a rise, and before them would lie the great river. And tomorrow, maybe they would be in the wider world. As the days passed, the anticipation grew; surely the previous night's journey had taken them even closer to their goal. Tonight, yes, tonight, they would find the river.

Meanwhile, they reveled in the new world they were exploring. The open road smelled different: no pigsty, no food trough with old bits of slops, no dogs, no chickens, no horses, no people. Instead, there was the smell of green: grass, bushes, trees. It was a heady smell that both excited and scared them.

But green wasn't the only smell that intrigued them; they investigated each new smell. That's how they found their first acorns, a sweet delicacy they came to crave. That's how they first met—and ran away from—a skunk family. That's how they found spicy marigolds near a farmhouse.

It was nearing midnight, before moonrise, and the black sky crawled with pinpricks of light. Penelope followed her nose to a new scent and found a bed of yellow-gold flowers. The first bite was sharp, yet sweet.

“Santiago, over here!”

Santiago's dark and white form trotted around the corner of the house. Penelope eagerly turned. But wait, it wasn't Santiago—the smell was wrong. Penelope squinted. She chewed the flower again, and then stopped. It wasn't Santiago. A trembling started deep inside, and she spat out the flower. She took a deep breath.

That thing smelled of—dog.

The beagle bayed, his voice deep and demanding, an alarm for the family who was sleeping inside.

With her stomach heaving in fear, Penelope spun and trotted away. The beagle's voice took up a different cry. She glanced around; he was gaining on her. Putting on a burst of speed, dust kicked up and stuck in her throat. She struggled to breathe. Dogs had strong yellow teeth that sank into muscle, and they never let go. Faster, she needed to go faster. Her hooves bit into the soft dirt. Was he still behind her? She gasped for breath.

Suddenly, white light glared over the farmyard. A door slammed. The beagle ran to its master. In the bright light, Penelope saw he was tied to a long rope.

Her breathing eased, and she slowed, but fear kept her moving.

Santiago trotted up beside her. “I wish he'd been loose. Hide-and-seek with Yates that last day was fun. Berkshires love that sort of thing.”  

Which frustrated Penelope even more. Santiago liked hide-and-seek? Even watching it made her jittery. If that dog had chased her, he'd easily catch her. How could Santiago laugh about that kind of danger?

A sudden cramp in her hind leg made Penelope pull up. Still, she limped on, fear pushing her hard, until they could no longer see the lights of the farm.

“Will dogs always be tied up?” Penelope's voice trembled. She shook her hind leg trying to ease the lingering cramp.

“At night, probably,” Santiago said. “It really bothers you?”

“Yes.” It was all she could manage to say.

“Should we avoid farms from now on?” Santiago sounded disappointed.

Penelope tested her leg by standing heavily on it. The cramp was almost gone. From the corner of her eye, she studied Santiago. This whole journey was a dangerous, high stakes gamble. Did she really want to go to sea with a Berkshire who liked to provoke dogs?

Dogs. One night long ago, when Penelope was just a piglet, a fox broke into the hen house. She remembered how the biddy-hens set up a squawking and clucking. The rooster started to crow in indignation, but it was cut short. Cock-a-Dwauk! Silence. The fox had killed the rooster. Then the ruckus started again as the fox chased the widowed hens.

The farmyard hound arrived, baying. The farmer flung open the henhouse door, and the hound bounded inside. Smart hens flew to the rafters, away from the fight. After the hound had caught and killed the fox, it started sniffing around. It followed the fox's trail into the woods. Not far into the woods—still in sight of the pigsty so that Penelope had a good view—he started digging. He dug rapidly and soon dragged out tiny fox kits. Three of them.

Then the hound played.

One kit tried to escape, but the hound slapped it with his huge paw, knocking it over. The kit rolled back toward the exposed den; to prevent it escaping back underground, the hound snapped its neck.

Penelope had squealed in anger. But hers had been just one of the many noises on the farm that night. Mrs. MacDonald was crying over the dead rooster. The horses were kicking their stalls.  The grandchildren were screaming about how foxes were wild. Over all of it, the hens were crying in grief. CLUCK, Cluck, cluck, cluck.  CLUCK, Cluck, cluck, cluck.

The next kit the hound slapped around a bit longer, keeping it on level ground. After one tremendous slap, the kit didn't get up again. The hound put a paw on the kit and tore at its fur. The third kit was whimpering pitifully, walking in circles. The hound knocked it around as well, letting it race a few steps before slapping it down.

Penelope screamed, “Let it go.”

But it, too, fell and didn't get up. When the hound looked up, his jaws were full of fur.

Dogs. Cruel hounds. The memory of that night still haunted Penelope.

“Yes,” she said firmly to Santiago. “We should avoid farms and dogs.”

The decision meant slower progress, but it eased Penelope's fears of the open road.

Over the next week, they passed through gently rolling cornfields, which seemed to stretch for miles and miles. When would they reach the river? Perhaps it was just beyond the cornfields. The ears of corn were still small and tight, waiting for the cool of autumn to ripen. From an eagle's eye view, the land was just large squares of crops. Only slight variations in color kept each square distinct from the last. For two pigs who knew nothing about foraging, there was nothing in the farmlands to eat.

They traveled at a steady pace, continually moving east, while the moon tracked across the sky. Penelope's stomach rumbled louder and louder. When the moon finally set, Penelope halted. “I'm hungry.”

“Berkshires are tough.” Santiago stripped long leaves from a corn plant and chewed with determination.

Penelope glared. She was still surprised sometimes at how different a Berkshire looked from Hampshire pigs like her. She thought the white band around the front legs of Hampshires was clean looking. Santiago just had white stocking feet, a white blaze on his forehead and a white-tipped tail. And he looked ludicrous chewing a corn plant, like a cow chewing its cud.

“Of course Hampshires are tough, too,” Santiago said quickly.

Penelope stalked stiff-legged down a row of corn.
Stuck-up pig
, she thought.

“But Berkshires can put up with things. Like hunger.” Santiago ambled after her.

Penelope whirled around and pressed her black snout against Santiago's white snout. She said tightly, “I'm sick of Berkshires.”

Santiago held his ground. “Don't insult me.”

“Berkshire this. Berkshire that.”

Santiago drew himself up. “Berkshires always say—”

“Not again.”

In the silence, an owl screeched. He was probably gulping down a baby mouse or some other tasty tidbit. Penelope thought with longing of the aroma of warm slops; back home, good food had appeared when she was hungry. She hadn't realized how much the comforts of home meant to her. Leaving home—leaving everything familiar—was just plain hard. Nothing was comfortable.

Traveling, it was so hard to remember that she liked Santiago, and she should be nice to him even when she didn't want to. Wait—maybe she'd gone too far. “It's all I hear,” she said, but softer this time. She turned and trotted along the cornrow again.

Santiago followed, but they were both silent for a few minutes.

Penelope's stomach growled. “I'm hungry.”

“So find something.” His voice was kinder.

“Where? Corn plants are so tasteless. So boring.”

So low she almost didn't hear, Santiago asked, “Are Berkshires boring, too?”

Penelope sighed. “No. Just so proud.”

“I'm not what you bargained for.”

Penelope stopped to face him. With a fierceness that surprised her, she said, “No. You're better than I bargained for.”

Santiago swaggered, then, showing off. “And Berkshires are special?”

The stars—except the morning star—were all fading. It was near dawn. “I'm not what you bargained for either?” she asked.

Santiago rubbed alongside her. “Hampshires are special, too.”

Suddenly, it didn't matter that they were both hungry. They were together and heading for the wider world, and life was good. And maybe tomorrow night, they'd find the great river.

They spent a hungry day sleeping along a fencerow where vines and shrubs created some cover. About midnight the next night, they came to a creek where large oaks and cottonwood trees spread their branches. They foraged on early acorns until the ache in their bellies eased.

A sudden commotion caught their attention. A shadow darted past. Penelope swiveled her head to follow a tiny bird. It swooped around in another wide, shallow, U-shaped flight, then dove. Penelope studied the shrub where the bird had disappeared.

The bird burst out of the shrub, built up speed in another circling flight, and dove.

Santiago crouched and looked under the shrub, then straightened. “A snake is attacking the hummingbird's nest. Looks like a speckled king snake.”

Penelope crouched, too, and studied the nest. It was tiny, not even half as wide as her front hoof. Soft, camouflage-colored materials were stuck together with spider webbing and molded into a cup shape. Two fledglings, almost the size of their mother, jumped about, their sharp bills jutting here and there, as if they would stab any intruder. Blinking, Penelope thought, all hummingbird babies are runts.

The king snake had already climbed about halfway up the shrub. His dark eyes were fixed on the babies, his supper.

“Do something,” Penelope snapped.

Santiago shrugged. “There's nothing we can do. It's a snake.”

“Those baby birds want to live. My mother said—and Berkshires should agree—how we live is more important than having adventures. We didn't come here just to live like pigs in a sty. We can do something.”

“What?”

In another flash of red and green, the hummingbird mother dove desperately at the king snake.

Obviously, Santiago had no idea what to do. Penelope gritted her teeth in anger. She didn't know either, but she had to try something. She crouched and crept forward, trying to mimic the barnyard cat; her ears were flat, and her eyes intent. Like lightning, she leapt, bit the snake's tail and jerked; its hold on the shrub loosened, and Penelope stumbled backward.

Oh! She had a fat snake in her mouth!

Santiago's eyes were wide with surprise.

With a snap of her head, Penelope slammed the speckled snake into the water. Splash! It glided jerkily—as if trying to recover from being thrown about—to the creek's other side and into the undergrowth.

Santiago whistled slowly. “Wow!”

Penelope drew a shaky breath and grinned. It was a good thing she hadn't thought about it before attacking the snake.

Santiago spat at the snake's disappearing tail. “It'll come back, though.”

The hummingbird, her red breast flashing, hovered in front of Penelope's face. She dipped and wove about in a dance of thanks. Penelope pushed aside leaves and peered at the red just showing on the fledglings' breasts. “They look like they're almost big enough to leave the nest.” She turned back to the mother. “Teach them to fly today. Or that king snake will have his supper after all.”

The hummingbird dipped and disappeared into the shrub.

Penelope sighed. “Think they'll make it?”

“At least you gave them a chance,” Santiago said.

The land changed as they traveled on, growing flatter. Surely the great river was just ahead. The anticipation that had carried Penelope thus far gave way to a nagging worry: what if this was all for nothing, and there was no wider world? Or what if they couldn't get to this mysterious place? How would they cross the river? Was just anyone allowed to cross?

They grew even leaner and stringier the next few weeks as they avoided all farmyards, chicken houses, barns and stables. Foraging was decent, but they always carried an edge of hunger. Hunger not just for food, but also for a sight of the great river. Now, Penelope hurried up each rise, stopping to scan ahead. They had come so far; the river had to be near.

One night, they came to a creek and the local watering hole, a deep, clear pool. They decided to spend the night asking if anyone knew the way to the wider world.

Nearby, a bullfrog chug-a-rumped. Branches rattled in the wind. And the wind had picked up.

A raccoon jumped from a tree and climbed onto a rotten log. His agile hands picked up acorns and chunked them into the dark hole in the log. Like an old man fussing, a porcupine rattled out of the log, scolding the raccoon for disturbing him. The raccoon chattered back, then leapt over the porcupine's quills and scampered to Penelope and Santiago.

“You're new.”

Santiago said, “We've come a long ways.”

The raccoon dashed to the creek, washed an acorn, and galumphed back to them. “You're passing through?” He was as large as a sheepdog and spoke with a strange accent.

“We're looking for the wider world.”