The big pig is now certain he’s found what he seeks the most, a sow in-season. So deeply, Kylie glances briefly at the unusual noise yet decides it’s just a night bird or bat and returns to reading her novel, her face lit in a pale glow from iPad. Surprisingly stealthy for a boar of its size, the pig reaches where Kylie has just pissed and sniffs deeply. The buzz of the night insects attracts by the light mask the sound of the pig approaching. Kylie returns to her tent, turns on the gas light, grabs her iPad and opens the eBook she has been reading. The boar tastes the air with its nostrils, and lifts his head slightly and sniffs. The beady eyes remain fixed on Kylie as she pees. When she finishes her meal of heated beef stew from a can, Kylie moves several yards from the tent to relieve her bladder. Meanwhile, the boar remains motionless and vigilant. The smock is white cotton and billows over her slim body loosely. As is Kylie’s habit, she slips on a painting smock she uses for sleeping attire and returns to the tent to prepare her evening meal. The boar watches Kylie as she removes her blouse and jeans and washes briskly in the cold water of the creek. Feeling sure the wild boar has moves on, Kylie decides to wash in the small creek before preparing a meal.Ībout twenty yards into the thick undergrowth, two small slits of red eyes peer from the face of a wild Pig. This area harbors more than feral and wild pigs there are alligators, bears, snakes, and cougars to think about too. She returns to focus on her painting yet the light has gone and she decides to stop for the day.Īs she covers her easel and removes her painting to the small tent to protect it from night dew, Kylie remains wary of the sounds of the swamp. Kylie listens intently for a good ten minutes yet hears no more sounds. Something’s out there, she thought, an animal, a large animal moving carefully. She hears it again, a low grunt and a snap of twigs. She stops painting and gazes into the fading light of the swamp. Something disturbs Kylie as she struggles with her pallet of colors trying to capturing the variegated light filtering through the trees fringing the wetlands. The wetlands provide the perfect habitat for the pigs and the swine breed vigorously, the advantage of this for her town is it attracts hunters from all over the country to shoot them. Although they do breed with the wild pigs, so there are many mixed breeds in the swamp. Many farmers use the big pink Yorkshire pigs, and these were the one’s Kylie had seen. The pigs in question are not the wild swine, native to the area, they’re feral pigs escaped the many piggeries in the area. Sure, she has seen the disturbs ground makes by wild pigs searching for food yet aside from brief glimpses of them she has seen nothing extraordinary.
As a youngster, she had used the fringes of the swamp as a playground and now at twenty-one, she often camps in the swamp for days on end to paint and photograph the abundant wildlife. Kylie has heard the stories of the feral pigs in the local swamp for most of her life and like the other folk in town had paid little attention to the tales.