Fifty-Four Pigs Read online

  Fifty-Four Pigs

  A Dr. Bannerman Vet Mystery

  Philipp Schott

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Philipp Schott The Accidental Veterinarian

  The Willow Wren

  How to Examine a Wolverine

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sneak Preview of the Next Dr. Bannerman Vet Mystery: Six Ostriches Prologue

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Praise for Philipp Schott

  The Accidental Veterinarian

  “Few books . . . approach the combination of fine writing, radical honesty and endless optimism found in Winnipeg practitioner Schott’s . . . Laugh until you cry — and believe, as he says, that all that really matters is that the heart of the pet (and its owner) is pure.”

  — Booklist, starred review

  “Schott’s writing is engagingly conversational and showcases his colorful sense of humor . . . Educational, entertaining and compassionate, this confluence of happy accidents is a must-read for anyone who is, loves or works with a veterinarian.”

  — Shelf Awareness

  The Willow Wren

  “Philipp Schott pulls off the considerable feat of creating empathy for his characters without ever resorting to easy excuses for their sometimes indefensible choices . . . a fine, nuanced storytelling achievement.”

  — Frederick Taylor, historian and bestselling author of Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany

  “This beautifully written tale alternates between displays of sardonic humour and setting some truly poignant and heart-wrenching scenes. Morally complex and nuanced, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand a difficult period in German history.”

  — Dr. Perry Biddiscombe, historian and author of The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944–1947

  How to Examine a Wolverine

  “An engaging study of the behaviors of pets and the people who care for them. Schott’s tone is warm, friendly and folksy in his storytelling and his conversations with pet owners; even in the most stressful times, he’s a compassionate and level-headed guide. How to Examine a Wolverine is an essay collection that celebrates the love of animals.”

  — Foreword Reviews

  “Schott’s writing style is conversational, which makes How to Examine a Wolverine an easy and enjoyable read.”

  – Winnipeg Free Press

  “While the stories here are blue-ribbon perfect for anyone who loves four-footed, furry creatures, author Philipp Schott takes this book a few dozen hoofprints past your everyday household fur-kids.”

  — Goshen News

  Dedication

  For Lorraine

  Prologue

  They were unsettled. The routine had not changed — the lights came on at the same time and they were fed at the same time — but other people were here this morning. Yesterday as well. Visitors came from time to time, but rarely in the winter. And there was something different about these visitors. They could not see the visitors, but they could hear them and smell them. Something undefinable about the visitors caused anxiety to ripple through the barn like a wave. But they couldn’t act on these uneasy feelings. Instinct said flee. But the doors were closed. And besides, it was very cold outside, and there was no food out there when the world was white. They knew that. Here, inside, it was warm, and more food would come. More food always came. Yet they were still nervous, so they shuffled and jostled and made noise and sought comfort in each other. Then it was loud, so loud, and bright, so bright. Then dark. The world ended.

  Chapter One

  Peter heard it before he saw it. A deep, percussive thud from somewhere ahead and to the left. Beyond Baldurson’s woodlot. Loud enough to be heard over the rattle of the truck on the washboard gravel. Unexpected enough to startle him. His immediate thought was that it sounded like something massive had been dropped from a great height.

  Whump.

  Like a whale or a cement truck.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, he glanced at the clock on his dashboard.

  8:33 a.m.

  Then he saw it. Pillows of smoke began vaulting one over the other, as if scrambling to get a better view, the rising column of battleship grey sharply contrasting the bright blue Manitoba January sky.

  “Shit,” Peter said to himself as he brought the truck to a stop on a rise that afforded the clearest view. The smoke was definitely coming from the other side of Ed Baldurson’s place. Perhaps three kilometres away.

  That would be Tom’s farm.

  “Shit!” he said again.

  He was due at Tom’s later that morning, but was expected at Bill Chernov’s first.

  Forget that. One of Bill’s heifers had a cut on her leg, but that could wait.

  Peter put the New Selfoss Veterinary Services truck in gear and spun the tires as he accelerated toward the intersection, turning left instead of right as planned. As he did so, he voice-activated his phone.

  “Hey Google, dial 911.”

  After a brief pause and two rings, an operator answered. “911. What is your emergency?”

  “An explosion and fire at Tom Pearson’s farm nine kilometres south of New Selfoss, about two kilometres east of Provincial 59.”

  There was a brief pause and the click-click-clack sound of rapid typing on a keyboard.

  “I have your coordinates. Are you at the fire?”

  “No, I’m about three kilometres southeast of it. New Selfoss volunteer fire department will know where Tom’s place is.” 911 calls in rural Manitoba were all routed through the Provincial Public Safety Answering Point in Brandon, almost 300 kilometres away. Their variable ability to accurately pinpoint the locations of emergencies was a perennial subject of coffee shop deliberation.

  “Are there people in the building?”

  “Well, I’m not there yet, so I don’t know for sure.” Peter tried not to sound irritated by what struck him as a silly question. “But I don’t think Tom would be home and he lives alone.”

  “First responders will be on their way shortly.”

  Peter took a deep breath to steady his nerves and then sped up as he neared Tom’s farm.

  * * *

  Peter was right. He could see the source of the smoke as soon as he turned the corner past the trees and arrived at the bridge over Yellowgrass Creek. Tom Pearson’s hog barn was on fire. The smoke was thick, too thick to get an immediate sense of how big the fire itself was. He knew that the amount of smoke did not necessarily indicate the size of the fire, but still, this looked like a big one. Barn fires were not uncommon, but why an explosion?

  The manure pit.

  There had been a massive hog barn explosion two years ago near Altona because of methane build-up in a manure pit combined with some poorly considered welding work. But Tom was careful and smart. And Tom would not be there doing any welding, or anything else that could generate a spark, because he was always at Rita’s Coffee Shop in New Selfoss by 7:45 at the latest, except on Saturdays and Sundays. And it wasn’t a Saturday or a Sunday. It was a Tuesday.

  Peter skidded to a stop in the farmyard and yanked the truck’s door open.

  The pigs! Those poor pigs!

  There were no other vehicles in the yard. Tom’s might have been in the garage, but there’s no way he would have slept through the explosion. Tom must be at Rita’s, as Peter had assumed. It was up to Peter to save the pigs. He jogged a few steps toward the barn before he hit an invisible, pulsating wall of extreme heat. He couldn’t force his way through it. There was no way. He realized that he had probably parked the truck too close, so he jumped back into the cab and reversed 20 metres at high speed to the far side of the yard.

  Then he got out and stared at the unfolding catastrophe.

  Flames were now shooting out of all the barn windows. A door on the east side of the barn appeared to have been blown out by the force of the initial explosion, creating a cone-shaped blast pattern in the snow, toward an aspen bluff that th
e pigs were sometimes pastured in. Fortunately, this was away from the house and the other outbuildings, which were across the yard to the west.

  Then, with a suddenness that made Peter jump, the roof collapsed in a deafening boom, sending fiery embers straight up into the air as if from a squat prairie volcano. Peter was glad that he had moved the truck. Tom’s hog barn wasn’t one of those modern, fully sealed, high-tech, steel-clad porkchop factories, but rather an old wooden one, repurposed for his pasture pig project. Only in January in Manitoba there is no pasture, so the pigs need a cozy straw-filled refuge out of the wind and the snowdrifts. Old wood plus dry straw equals tinderbox. This was going to be nothing but ash and char in a matter of minutes.

  Those poor pigs.

  Peter had known some of them personally. They all had names. Fifty-four of them, if he remembered correctly. And Peter usually remembered correctly. He got out of the truck again, slower this time, and leaned heavily on the hood, unable to take his eyes off the conflagration. Unable to think of anything else to do. The only sounds came from the fire, a crescendo and decrescendo of roars and crackles, following some complex infernal rhythm. Even the crows were silent. Six of them roosted in the big elm with the tire swing beside the porch, all six watching the fire with intense interest. Normally they would be cawing at Peter, but not today. Peter had left his gloves in the truck, so put his hands into his parka pockets and drew in a deep breath.

  * * *

  Peter wondered who would arrive first. He hoped it would be his brother-in-law, Kevin. He often felt self-conscious around people he knew less well. He was well aware that his arms seemed slightly too long for his already long frame and that his head stuck forward, as if he was peering at something. (In fact, it was likely the result of a lifetime of ducking and stooping.) This gangly effect was enhanced when he moved, which made him look like he was still learning how to use his body. Graceful was not a word that was often, if ever, applied to him. His dark brown hair was usually unruly too, so well-groomed was another word that was not often applied to him. He knew that it was a joke among his friends to begin describing him to someone as tall, dark and . . . trailing off so that the listener would helpfully insert the customary completion of that phrase. “No, not that,” they would say. “Definitely not that.” Peter was in early middle age — 41 to be exact — and could reasonably be thought of as young, or as old, or as in-between, depending on the light and how he had slept and how hard he had been working. He also knew that many people misinterpreted his smile. At a casual glance, it tended to be read as genial, but a significant minority, if they had the vocabulary, instead thought of it as enigmatic or cryptic or inscrutable. This had the effect of dividing people into two camps — those who found Peter amiable and those who found him unnerving. For the latter group, he radiated . . . something. He knew he was amiable, but he wasn’t especially troubled to be thought of as enigmatic instead. He just wished his body wasn’t so awkward.

  After a couple of minutes of watching the flames and smoke Peter pulled his gaze away and began to look around. There were several tire tracks in the snow-covered yard. It had snowed one or two centimetres yesterday, stopping at around six in the evening. Tom had obviously not had the snowblower out since then. The tracks overlapped with each other and appeared to be from three different vehicles, but it was difficult to be certain. One would have been from Tom leaving this morning. Tom lived alone now, but he was very social and did get a lot of visitors, especially in the evenings, so the others could have been from last night. Perhaps Tom’s ’80s cover band, The Newer Waves, had a practice last night? Otherwise, there was nothing else of note to see. And certainly nothing that hinted in any way at what might have happened here. The manure pit still seemed like the most likely answer, although Tom’s was quite small compared to that one in Altona, and Peter was sure that it was well ventilated.

  Peter knew that the RCMP would arrive first and that, because it was a Tuesday morning in January and likely not much else was going on, they would be able to come straight here. The fastest they could drive on these roads would be 90 kilometres an hour, so allowing for two minutes to get into the car they should be here eight minutes from when Brandon 911 dispatch contacted them. This was five minutes ago now, so . . . Peter cocked his head and listened. Yes, there it was. The fire was still loud, but he could hear the siren now.

  Three minutes later an RCMP Ford Interceptor skidded into the yard and, to his relief, Peter’s brother-in-law jumped out. Peter knew it was Kevin before the car stopped. Kevin Gudmundurson’s bright red hair made him a cinch to identify from a distance. His thrice-broken nose and the fact that he was built like a bear trained to wrestle professionally, and was almost as hairy as one, completed the picture. Up until the previous summer the Mounties had prohibited beards for most members, but that policy changed, so now Kevin also sported a lavish Viking growth on his broad chin. Or, at least as lavish as the force would allow. There were still limits. Kevin’s dream was to let it grow to chest-length and then fork it into two long braids. This would have to wait until retirement.

  “Holy Toledo!” This was one of Kevin’s favourite expressions, but it was said with particular vehemence this time. “When did you get here?”

  “Ten minutes ago. I heard the explosion while driving to Chernov’s.”

  “Explosion? Are you sure?”

  “No question. I heard it from three klicks away. And look at the east side of the barn.”

  “Right.” Kevin nodded. “I suppose it could have started off as a fire and then set off a gas line or something . . .”

  “Maybe, but the fire would have to have been small because there was no smoke in the sky until after I heard the explosion.”

  Kevin grunted, scanning the yard with his hand shielding his eyes against the brightest part of the fire. “Anybody else here?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s just the tire tracks leaving from the garage and maybe two others here in the yard.”

  “Yeah, I see that.”

  They were both quiet for a moment.

  “Volunteer fire should be here soon. Nothing else for us to do until then,” Kevin said as he began to jot a few details down in his little coil notebook. Then he looked up and smiled at Peter. “Mmm, smells like bacon, though, eh? Had breakfast yet?”

  “Shut up, Kevin, that’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is!”

  “Can I go now? Bill’s expecting me.”

  “Yeah, go on. I know where to find you if I need some more details or a statement, and I’ll see you soon regardless.” Kevin smiled. “In fact, Sunday dinner at the latest, eh?” Peter’s wife, Laura, invited her brother over most weeks on Sunday evenings.

  As Peter drove out of the yard, he saw the red flashing lights of the New Selfoss Volunteer Fire Department’s old pumper truck in the distance. It looked like they would meet on the narrow Yellowtail Creek bridge, so he pulled over just before it and waved at Dan, Dave and Brian as they raced past. Soon after he crossed the bridge, he saw another vehicle approach at high speed. It was Tom Pearson’s black pickup truck. Peter raised his hand in greeting as they passed each other in a whirl of snow, but Tom did not seem to notice as he stared straight ahead.

  Poor Tom.

  Chapter Two

  Peter was in the minority in New Selfoss in that he was not of Icelandic descent. He was mostly Orkney Scot on his father’s side and Ukrainian and German on his mother’s. John Bannerman, his great-great-great-great-grandfather, had been recruited by the Hudson’s Bay Company to row their York boats and man their trading posts in the remote wilderness of Rupertsland. On retirement, he settled in the Red River Colony like so many of the other Orkney Scots he worked with. This wasn’t so much a choice as a necessity because most of them were unable to afford the passage back to Orkney. The Germans in Peter’s mother’s background came from the plains of Mecklenburg and were likely the source of his height, whereas the Ukrainian ancestors accounted for his dark complexion. Many of their descendants, including his mother, had what his grandmother described as the “Mongol spot” on their backs. It was an oval patch of slightly darker skin just below the shoulder blade, about the size of a loonie. According to his grandmother it was the result of an errant gene passed on from when Genghis Khan’s Mongol horde rampaged across the steppes of Ukraine in the early 1200s. She said that it was a good thing, although she never explained why. Peter didn’t have one and had always felt a little bereft as a result.