Charged Five Hundred for Sow Delivery, Plague Made Her Regret

I went out to a big livestock farmer's place to deliver a sow's litter, and the sow gave birth naturally to eighteen piglets.

The boss lady insisted the piglets' bad coloring was because I'd used the wrong drug and ruined their looks.

She not only refused to pay my fee, she flipped it around and demanded I pay her five hundred dollars in nutrition compensation.

I let out a cold laugh, picked up my instrument box, and left.

Three days later, the next village over was hit by a terrifying swine plague, and for ten miles around, I was the only one who could mix the cure.

The boss lady video-called me in tears, saying if I'd only save her pigs she'd wire me five thousand right away.

I looked at the fat hogs rolling around all over the ground and lit a cigarette, slow and easy.

"Too late. Your pigs have real nice coloring now. Gone all purple. A one-of-a-kind edition."

......

"Cut the crap. These piglets have a green tinge, which means you used the wrong drug during the delivery and ruined their looks."

"Today you don't leave through this door until I get every last cent of that five hundred in nutrition money!"

The boss lady, Meg Lawrence, was blocking the door to the pigpen.

I'd been crouched in that stifling, reeking pen for seven straight hours.

The shirt on my back was long since soaked through with sweat.

Eighteen newborn piglets lay on the ground.

Crowded together, nursing.

It broke the whole town's record for a single natural litter from one sow.

I wiped the sweat off my face.

Forcing my temper down, I spoke.

"Boss Lawrence, take a good look for yourself."

"The piglets were just born. They've left the mother's amniotic fluid, and a faint greenish-red tint to the skin is a normal physical reaction."

"Two days at most, and the coloring will turn to a normal pink-white."

Meg's eyes bulged, hands planted on her hips, spit practically flying into my face.

"You trying to pull one over on me! I've raised pigs for years. You think some green kid knows more than I do?"

"When I say the looks are ruined, they're ruined!"

"The way I see it, you're just some fresh-out-of-school quack, using my valuable breeding stock to practice on!"

That screech of hers.

It pulled in the people outside in an instant.

Her husband, Cary Chavez, came over with three farmhands.

Shovels and spades in their hands, they closed in around me.

Cary shoved me in the shoulder.

"Kid, you got the nerve to raise hell on my turf?"

"No money today, you're not walking out of here on your own two feet!"

The men were rough about it.

They marched right up and pushed my beat-up electric scooter into the corner.

The farmhand called Quinn Finch.

He went further and snatched my big delivery instrument box.

"Give the box back. That's not something you people get to touch."

My face went cold.

Seeing this, Meg got even more smug.

She just plopped down on the pigpen threshold.

Throwing a screaming tantrum.

"Everybody come look, the out-of-town vet ruined our pigs and now he wants to run!"

"Somebody, call the cops, have him arrested, throw him in jail!"

The town was out of the way to begin with.

I'd only just arrived.

I had no enforcement power in my hands.

Going head-to-head would only get me hurt.

Looking at their shameless faces.

I felt around in my pocket.

All that was in there was the five hundred in cash I'd just taken out for rent.

I pulled out that five hundred.

And threw it down in front of Cary's rubber boots, caked with pig manure.

"Consider this five hundred an early down payment on coffins for these pigs."

Cary crouched down and picked the bills up off the ground.

Wet a finger and counted them.

"Smart of you. Now get lost, fast."

"And don't let me see you in this town again. Every time I do, you get a beating!"

I turned around and picked up the small medical case at my feet.

And strode toward the yard gate.

Just as I passed the sow's feed trough.

My eye caught something behind the big sow's ear.

Tucked in the folds.

A faint scatter of purplish-red spots, each about the size of a soybean.

The color of those spots ran very deep.

Like poisoned sores soaked down into the flesh.

I laughed to myself, cold.

This disease was going to break out in full within three days.

By then, your whole family would be down on your knees begging me.

The sun beat down on me the whole way as I walked back to the town veterinary clinic.

I hadn't even reached the door when the stench hit me.

Someone had dumped a whole bucket of watery pig manure over the clinic's old roller door. Yellow-green filth was oozing through the cracks and pooling all over the ground, and a swarm of green flies buzzed over it.

At the little shop next door, Mrs. Li was cracking sunflower seeds. When she saw me come back, she rolled her eyes, turned, and shut her door.

A few steps off, a couple of idle men stood pointing and muttering at me.

I pulled out my phone and opened the ranchers' group chat.

Pinned at the top was a video Meg Lawrence had posted.

In it, she was holding those five hundred dollars in her hand, red-faced and gloating straight into the camera.

"Everybody take a good look at this man.

"This is the con artist who takes healthy pigs and ruins them!

"Used the wrong drug, and on top of that tried to steal my equipment.

"My husband caught him red-handed and made him pay five hundred dollars in nutrition compensation!"

Below it, every single reply was piling on.

Then my phone started buzzing.

It was Dudley Finch, the big cattle rancher on the west side of the village. Just yesterday I'd cured his little calf of acute gastroenteritis.

"Bertram, don't come around my cattle barn anymore. I heard all about what you did."

Before I could explain, Uncle Dudley hung up on me.

Right after that, the woman who raised sheep and old man Wang who kept chickens both called. Every one of them, without exception, wanted to cancel their orders.

The sheep rancher didn't just cancel. She cursed me out over the phone for having no conscience, and demanded I pay her for the emotional distress she'd suffered the last couple of days.

I tossed my phone on the table and took a deep breath.

Not far off, Darrell Perrythe old vet who ran this town like his own turfcame ambling over with his hands behind his back. He wore a yellowed white undershirt, half a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Kid, I told you a long time ago. Outsiders who come to our town have to know the rules."

Darrell jabbed his cigarette holder at the manure on the door.

"Every animal for miles around only drinks the medicine Darrell Perry boils up.

"You want to come steal my rice bowl? Then you'd better hope you've got the luck for it.

"Boss Lawrence has spoken. Everybody's getting together, and tomorrow we run you out of town."

I looked at his weathered old face and didn't say a word back.

Holding my breath against the stench, I locked the reeking door tight, shutting out every last jeer from the world outside.

I didn't bother washing the sweat off me. I opened my medical kit and took out a sealed little glass vial.

Back when I was leaving Meg Lawrence's pigpen, I'd secretly scraped a bit of skin flakes from behind the sow's ear.

I opened up the microscope, mounted the sample onto a slide, and carefully dripped on the stain.

I looked through the eyepiece, and what was under the lens made me suck in a cold breath.

Dark-purple clusters of virus were splitting apart in a mad geometric multiplication, devouring the healthy cells around them.

This was absolutely no ordinary swine plague.

This was a highly contagious, extremely short-incubation, virulent mutant swine plague virus.

A full-blown outbreak was only a heartbeat away.

Once that mutant virus spread everywhere, there would be no stopping it.

The whole county's livestock industry would be wiped out.

I put on my straw hat.

Slung the wicker basket onto my back.

And slipped quietly out the back door of the clinic.

Straight for the back hills over in the neighboring village.

I had to stop the virus before it broke out.

For that I needed one detox herb that grew only on those hills, to use as the base for the antibody medicine.

The mountain path was rough.

Choked with thorny brush.

My arms came away with a dozen bleeding scratches.

The kind that burns down to the bone.

I crouched at the edge of a steep cliff face.

And dug up two herb plants with their root systems still intact.

I'd just tucked the herbs into my basket.

When a figure flickered through the trees deeper in.

It was Jeremy Clayton, Meg Lawrence's informant.

Hiding behind a tree in the distance.

Sneaking shots of me with his phone.

I pretended not to see him.

Went quickly back down the hill to the makeshift testing shed behind the clinic.

I'd barely rinsed the herbs and set them in the clay pot to simmer.

When a loud crash split the air.

The wooden door of the shed was kicked open.

Meg Lawrence stormed in with a dozen villagers, all of them gripping clubs and shovels.

"Well, well, you little thief! You've got the nerve to steal from me!"

Meg jabbed a finger at me, cursing.

"Jeremy just saw you with his own eyes, up on my back hills,"

The fat on her face quivered as she pointed right at my nose, spitting insults.

"Those hills belong to me now. I leased them."

"Every last blade of grass up there is mine, and you actually dared to steal my herbs!"

I stood guarding the workbench.

"Those are wild hills. The village council never leased them out to anyone. Quit spouting nonsense."

Meg gave a cold snort.

And swept her hand through the air.

"Smash it all!"

Jeremy swung the shovel up.

And with one blow shattered the clay pot I'd just brought to a boil.

Herbs and mud splattered across the floor.

The other villagers joined in.

Smashing every jar and pot in my shed to pieces.

"Stop!"

I shouted in a fury.

And moved to rush in and stop them.

A round of coughing came from the doorway.

Mayor Lambert walked in with his hands behind his back.

He glanced at the wreckage all over the floor.

And let out a theatrical sigh.

"Bertram, son, why can't you learn to bend a little?"

"Meg here is one of the biggest taxpayers in this town. How could you go and steal from her?"

"Just bow your head and apologize to Meg, and we'll let this go. Don't blow it up into something bigger."

The mayor was plainly smoothing things over.

Taking the side of Meg, the village's big money.

That only puffed Meg up more.

She walked over to the pile of crushed herbs.

Raised her foot and ground it down hard.

"Anybody within ten miles who dares call you out for their animals is going up against me, Meg Lawrence!"

"I'll make sure you never land a single job in this town."

"I'll make sure you starve to death right here!"

With that.

She swaggered out with her people.

I clenched my teeth.

Wrapping gauze around my bleeding forearm.

Watching their backs disappear.

The phone in my pocket chimed with a crisp alert.

I pulled it out.

It was the weather service, a red alert for extreme heat and humidity, just issued.

Over the next three days.

The area would face relentless extreme heat and humidity.

I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth.

The catalyst had finally arrived.

The show was about to begin.

Three days later.

The village loudspeakers had been blasting cheerful music since morning.

Meg Lawrence wanted to show off her sow that had just delivered eighteen piglets without a hitch.

And she wanted to remind everyone for miles around exactly where she stood.

So she threw a lavish whole-hog barbecue feast right there in the village square, a full open-house spread.

Thirty tables in all.

Every man, woman, and child in the village had been invited.

The stream of flattery and the clinking of glasses.

You could hear it clear as day two streets over.

I sat inside the clinic.

Staring at the workbench in front of me.

Footsteps came from outside all at once, and then a dull thud.

I lifted my head.

Looked out through the gap in the window.

Jeremy Clayton was holding a cracked plastic basin.

It was full of slop.

He dropped it hard right at my door.

And bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"You hear me in there, you quack!"

"My aunt's in a good mood today, so she's treating you to a nice bowl of food."

"Wouldn't want you starving to death in there and stinking up the place, dragging bad luck onto our village!"

The villagers passing by burst out laughing.

I paid no attention to the cursing and jeering outside. I just bolted the door.

And went back to the workbench.

I checked every reading carefully.

Then took the single vial of special antibody serum on the table.

And portioned it out into more than a dozen sterile syringes.

Then.

I set them in the cold-storage box and locked the code.

Once all of that was done.

I leaned back in my chair.

Lit a cigarette.

And waited for the virus to break out in full.

Out in the village square.

The feast had reached its peak.

Meg Lawrence's face was flushed red.

A cup of whiskey in her hand.

She stepped up onto a red plastic stool and then onto the tabletop.

And bragged loudly in front of the whole village.

"Eat up, everybody, don't hold back!"

"With those eighteen little gold nuggets of mine, plus the few hundred fat hogs I've already got."

"By the end of this year I'll have made a million."

"And then I'll build a three-story mansion right at the head of the village, so everyone can share in the good fortune!"

The crowd clapped and cheered.

And right when the whole place was at its loudest.

A rush of panicked footsteps came from the direction of the village entrance.

Clarence Lambert, a rancher from the neighboring village, came crashing through the crowd, half-stumbling, half-crawling.

And staggered right into Meg Lawrence's banquet table.

He was covered head to toe in mud, one shoe gone, his whole face white as paper.

"It's bad!"

Clarence shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Something terrible's happened, it's all over!"

"Our pigs, every last one of them, they're foaming at the mouth and dropping sick!"