It whirled with astonishing speed. With a quick flip of its head, the massive boar tossed Tillman. He flew through the air close to ten feet before crashing down in a low mountain laurel bush. The pig rushed the bush, but it had thrown Tillman so high that he had landed three feet off the ground, only his right boot dangling near the pig.

The boar gamely slashed at Tillman’s foot with one of its tusks. Tillman stomped the big pig in the face. It squealed and then thundered back around to take another swipe. Tillman tempted him with the dangling foot, then snatched it out of the way, like a toreador baiting a bull. And like a toreador, he made the animal pay for its charge, sinking his blade into the boar’s back.

The boar squealed and then ran off about ten yards with the knife before it came around, glaring at Tillman with its beady little eyes. Its flanks rose and fell as it panted. Blood was now pouring from all three wounds on its body. But it showed no inclination to quit the fight.

Again it charged.

Tillman dangled his foot again, hoping to duplicate his previous trick. But the boar was too smart; it slammed instead into the base of the mountain laurel. The shock of the collision was so great that the entire bush trembled. Tillman sensed himself slipping, and he felt a burst of fear mixed with admiration.

Thud! The pig hit the tree again.

Tillman figured it was better to seize the initiative than wait to fall on his ass, so he dropped out of the bush and hit the ground. His leg buckled, and he saw blood running down his calf. Apparently the boar had tusked him when he threw Tillman—though he hadn’t even felt it at the time.

He forced himself to his feet. The pain hit him for the first time. But he knew that he had to shrug it off and keep fighting.

The entire herd of pigs had filtered out from beneath the trees and were eyeing him and the boar uneasily, like a crowd gathered to watch a bar fight. They weren’t menacing him, just watching, waiting for a clue from their leader as to what they should do.

But the old boar wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. He only saw Tillman.

And Tillman had no weapon now. The pig screamed and screamed, eyes locked on Tillman. It was obviously losing strength quickly now. It stamped the ground with one hoof, lowered its head, and prepared to charge. Blood and drool leaked from its mouth, the lower lip working with fury or pain.

The bow.

Tillman saw the bow lying on the ground, three arrows left in the quiver. He edged toward the bow.

The pig shook its head, grunted.

Tillman knew he’d only have one chance. He dove for the bow.

The pig attacked. Everything seemed to slow down. "0eÑ€†Tillman felt the throb of his gored calf, heard the thud of the pig’s hooves on the ground. There was no time to be afraid. It was survival of the fittest.

His fingers closed around the bow’s leather grip, then his other hand scooped an arrow from the fallen quiver. There was another impact as the boar smashed into him. It was like being hit by the biggest football player he’d ever played against. Only worse. And without pads.

Tillman crashed to the ground and lay there, the breath momentarily knocked out of him, the bow gone, the arrow clutched in his hand. The boar came around again and faced him, grunting softly.

The herd of pigs had begun to close in around Tillman. They stank of stale urine and pig shit. The big hog lowered its head again, preparing to charge.

Instinctively Tillman brought up his last weapon, the arrow itself, interposing the razor-sharp three-pronged broadhead between himself and the pig. The arrow tip was the only part of his bow-and-arrow rig that he hadn’t made himself. It was a commercially made broadhead—basically a pointed spike of hardened steel, surrounded by three razor blades, ground, honed, and stropped to surgical sharpness. There was no way to shoot it. So he was going to have to turn it into a tiny little spear. He clamped his hands around the fletching and propped the nock against a button on the bib of his camouflaged overalls, then clamped the soles of his boots around the shaft of the arrow.

For a moment all he could hear was the squealing of the pigs around him.

Then the pig made its final charge. There was a massive shock as the huge boar slammed into the soles of Tillman’s feet. He felt himself catapulted end over end, landing facedown on the ground.

The old boar stood over him, eyeing him. The other hogs went silent.

Tillman momentarily felt the boar’s rank breath on his face as it lowered its head toward him, turning its head and peering at him with one eye.

“All right, then,” Tillman said. “Get it over with quick, huh?”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

The boar winked. At least it seemed like a wink.

Then the hog settled down on the ground as though for a nap. It closed its eye again. And with that, it died.

The fletching of the arrow protruded no more than five inches from its chest. The arrow had gone straight through its heart.

For a moment there was no sound. Tillman struggled to his knees. Around him the circle of leaderless pigs stared at him momentarily, then whirled and were gone.

Tillman tried to get to his feet. But he was suddenly so tired that he couldn’t even stand. A part of his brain recognized this as the adrenaline dump that occurs after combat, forcing the body to shut down until it regains equilibrium. When that happens, he knew, there’s no fighting it.

So he rolled over and leaned against the hot, bloody flank of the old pig. The bristles prickled his flesh as he patted the dead beast on its great head.

He wanted to say something appropriate, to offer up some benediction that would sum up the old boar’s life and dignify its magnificent death. But Tillman had never been a man of words particularly. His brother had gotten all theigÑ€†e flowery-benediction genes.

“You look like shit,” a voice said, interrupting his weary rumination.

He looked up and saw a man standing about twenty yards away.

“You asshole,” Tillman said, closing his eyes. “You spooked my goddamn hog.”

“Is that any way to greet your brother?” Gideon said.

9

ANDERSON, WEST VIRGINIA

Gideon returned from Tillman’s bathroom with a military surplus first-aid kit and began cleaning and dressing the wound on his brother’s leg. It was a bad gash, one that probably should have been closed with a couple dozen stitches. The blood—half-dried and caked with dirt—ran down into Tillman’s boot. Gideon swabbed out the wound with alcohol while Tillman lay rigid with his eyes closed, not even making a noise. Then he spread some antibacterial cream, jury-rigged a series of butterfly bandages, and wrapped the whole oozing mess up in gauze.

When he was finished, Gideon looked around the bare little room. It was lit by two oil lamps. The walls were unpainted, decorated only by a gun rack containing four rifles and a shotgun. The kitchen consisted of a camp stove and an oven made from the top third of an oil drum. There was scarcely any evidence of personal possessions at all. It saddened him to see that Tillman’s life had been boiled down to this. It was beyond mere poverty, beyond spartan. It had the look of a penitent’s chamber.

Tillman himself didn’t look much better. Although he was shorter and more muscular than Gideon, he looked dirty, dried out, and clearly exhausted. Gideon felt a heavy twinge of guilt. Guilt . . . and sadness. Two years earlier, his brother had been made a scapegoat for a lot of things that weren’t his fault. Gideon had promised to keep him out of trouble. And had failed to keep his promise. Yet Tillman would never know just how much personal and political capital Gideon had spent for him. There were people in Washington who would have left him to rot in jail for the rest of his life. If it hadn’t been for Gideon, they probably would have. Still, Gideon couldn’t help feeling responsible for where Tillman had ended up.