Just then, the doorbell rang.
“Go awaaaaay,” Betty groaned from her bedroom.
“We’ve got it, Betty.” I hurried to answer the door.
Dab Holt waved at me through the living room window. When I opened up, she said, “Sorry, hon. I left my wrap behind.”
She found it behind the dining room buffet, probably misplaced during the excitement over the fight. I’m surprised no one heard it drop. The shawl was silver, and looked like the heavy chain mail knights used to wear.
“So, you and my mama go way back?”
“Ages, hon. Your mama’s a few years older than me, though.”
I ducked my chin to hide my smile. I could have beat around the bush some more, made polite conversation. But it was late, and I was nosy. Besides, Dab didn’t strike me as being too concerned with niceties.
“Mama said you shot a man in Reno. Is that the truth?”
“It was Carson City, hon.” She adjusted the wrap around her shoulders. “And I didn’t shoot him; I stabbed the son of a bitch. I’d do it again, too. I’d just make sure my aim was better.”
As I passed the turnoff to the Pork Pit, my stomach grumbled. Talk about your conditioned response. I was as predictable as Pavlov’s dogs. I made a U-turn, and circled back to the side road to the barbecue spot.
The food was tasty at Mama’s bridal shower, but those few ham-and-cheese cigars hardly filled me up. After all, I had saved a drowning man and then ravished him all afternoon. How many of my fellow shower-goers had burned those kinds of calories before the event?
I pulled into the gravel parking lot, no doubt grinning as a few choice moments with Carlos replayed in my mind. I was probably blushing, too. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that immediately snapped me back to the present time and place.
“Meat is Murder!” The shout came from a large pig, enormous costume head bobbing in time to the words.
“Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them!” chanted a second, smaller pig.
They looked like characters at Disney, if Disney had a farm animal theme park.
As I parked, I noticed a couple of customers hurrying past the pigs into the Pork Pit. The man held the woman close, as if one of the porcine pair might pounce.
“Murderer!” the first pig yelled at me as I got out of the Jeep. Deep voice. Masculine.
“Boycott Barbecue!” the smaller added. That voice was familiar, and it sounded like she was running out of steam.
I walked closer to the shoulder of the road where they stood, and peered at the little pig. A smooth cheek and a blond dreadlock showed through the face hole.
“Linda-Ann, is that you?”
The big head nodded. “Hey, Mace, how you doin’?”
“Well, I’m fine, but what’s all this with the pig suits? How long have you been out here?”
“We’re protesting,” the big pig said.
“Eight hours today,” Linda-Ann added. “And it’s our second day. This is the boy I told you about.” She pointed a plush pink arm at her companion. “Trevor, this is Mace.”
“How do you do?” He extended a soft cloven hoof.
I shook it. With greater maneuverability than I’d have thought, he tightened his grip on my hand.
“Please don’t go in there, Mace,” he pleaded. “Have you ever seen a video of an animal slaughterhouse? We can show you things you wouldn’t believe.”
“Uhm, no. But thank you anyway.” I tried to extricate my hand. “You know, Trevor, my sister’s a vegetarian. I realize there are good arguments against eating meat. But I don’t see how dressing up like Halloween and screaming at people gets your point across.”
He clutched my hand more tightly. “Exactly! We have to do more to reach people, don’t we Linda-Ann? We have to try harder to get our message across.”
I thought I detected a lack of enthusiasm in her nod. But it was hard to tell. Maybe the giant head was just getting heavy.
“We’re passing out fliers next week at the rodeo,” she said.
“Didn’t you used to barrel race with that Quarter horse of yours?”
“Trevor says rodeo events are cruel to the animals.”
My hand was still in its plush prison. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Trevor.” I pulled hard. He pulled back.
“Please, Mace.” His voice rose. “You can’t go in there to eat. It’s immoral.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion. It’s a free country. But we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this issue.”
He finally let go, and I immediately stuck my hands in my pockets so he couldn’t trap me again. Raising his arms to either side of the giant head, he lifted it off. His dark eyes burned with passion and idealism and maybe some desperation. Had I ever felt that strongly about anything?
“You should love animals, not eat them.” His voice quaked with emotion. “When you do, it’s like you’re the animal’s executioner.”
Were those tears filling his eyes? It may just have been a reflection from the restaurant’s neon pink Pork Pit sign.
I was about to step away, when his words triggered a memory.
“Speaking of executions, did y’all hear about the wild hog’s head that was left at Alice Hodges’ front door?”
Linda-Ann’s head wobbled from side to side. Shock registered on Trevor’s face.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Alice is the one whose husband got killed at the VFW this week.” When Linda-Ann turned her head to explain to Trevor, her voice missed the mouth hole and came out muffled.
“Alice’s murdered husband ran a barbecue business,” I said. “The day he died, somebody cut off a wild pig’s head, and left it on the widow’s porch.”
“That’s so cruel!” the pig’s foot flew to cover Trevor’s mouth.
“Well, it was already dead,” I said.
“But the disrespect that shows!”
“To Alice or the hog?” I asked him.
He considered. “Well, both.”
“When you said y’all have to do more to get your message across, I was just wondering how far you’d go to do that?”
Trevor’s brows knit together in confusion. For a guy in graduate school, he didn’t seem that brainy. Maybe he was too tall for his available blood supply.
“Mace is accusing us of having something to do with that hog’s head,” Linda-Ann explained.
I put up a hand. “Not accusing. Just wondering.”
Revulsion raced across Trevor’s face. Then he got angry. “How could you say something like that? I’d sooner cut off my own head than hurt a pig, wild or not. I’d never, ever, ever hurt an animal!”
A stray drop of spittle flew my way. I stepped back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
A big-bellied trucker got out of his rig on the road’s shoulder and headed for the Pork Pit. Without another word to me, Trevor slipped his pig head on again. “Boycott Barbecue!” he shouted at the trucker. “Meat is Murder!”
The big man didn’t even break stride. He just flicked a cigarette butt at Trevor’s pig head and kept walking.
“That was rude!” Linda-Ann called after him.
The cigarette bounced off the plastic head and fell to the gravel. Crushing it under my boot, I headed for the door.
Inside, almost every table was taken. The protest didn’t seem to be making much of a dent in business. It wasn’t until I’d gotten my take-out order of ribs, pulled pork, and all the fixin’s, that I thought about what Trevor had said.