Word Count → 386 :: Blood! ...OHNOESWAYNE
The sow thrashed underneath him, and the secui male snarled. She was not armed with tusks as a male hog might have been, but she was considerably huge—no elk, but definitely no rabbit, either. She also had more muscle and fight in her than he had considered, and he found himself wearing out. He considered lunging forward to savage her ears when Dixie finally came in close, and he tried to balance leaning away from the blade without also relinquishing his grip on the struggling pig.
His knife cut into the animal, and hot blood washed against his chest. Wayne curled his lip and held on until a few more blows from the knife managed to finally cut deep enough to kill the poor hog. Once the energy and life faded from her at last, he tentatively stepped off, shaking his coat and panting too as his eyes darted to his friend’s. He’d been about to make a dry remark about the far-from-clean kill when he recognized the frustration in her eyes, and so he held his tongue.
“She’s pretty damn big,” Wayne pointed out instead, grinning around his lolling tongue. “All meat.” He flopped down on his stomach, too exhausted from the struggle to be of any use while Dixie howled for the horses. She went and fastened the ropes between Duke and the hog so their catch could be drawn, and the Labrador stood, leaving behind a bloody print in the grass from his crimsoned coat. He hoped the scent wouldn’t spook gentle Fern, though he was sure that the mare was tougher than he cave her credit for.
“Let’s go, then,” the cowboy said with a triumphant smile at his friend. He padded alongside the stallion for a bit before pausing as they got to the edge of the trees, at which point his head drooped. He’d never been this tired before—which was ridiculous.
It was then that he glanced over his shoulder to see red drops along the path that he’d taken—something that he hadn’t noticed with the adrenaline and the sow’s blood all over his coat. He flopped back on the ground and rolled to his side slightly, making out a small gash on his belly from where the hooves had managed to cut him.
“…Aw, damn it.”
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