Page 93 of More Than Anything

The pig feigned to one side and streaked right past Landon, but not before the four-year-old future bulldogging champ dropped onto its back and threw his arms around its neck. And the pig ran. It ran like a demon, streaking around the ring, with Landon on its back, hanging on for dear life, hands locked together in a death grip. He wobbled and bobbled and slid from side to side, but he wouldn’t turn lose. The pig did everything it could manage, but it couldn’t dislodge the determined preschooler. As it tore around the ring, they could hear Landon yelling, “I GOT ME A PIG! I GOT ME A PIG!”

Avery was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, and he could hear Lydia screaming, “Hang with ’em, Landon! You got it, baby! Hang on!” Lillian was laughing and squealing, and even Jeremy was in on the action, cheering Landon on with Danette and Jason standing right there, laughing so hard they were crying.

The pig ran around for a full ten minutes until finally, exhausted, it stopped and wobbled back and forth for a minute. Quick as a wink, Landon flipped over onto his back, the pig still in his arms. He wrapped his legs around it and yelled, “SOMEBODY GET A ROPE. I NEED TA HOG-TIE DIS PIG!”

“You’ve taken that kid to too many rodeos!” Jason yelled, howling with laughter.

“From the looks of things, I’d say I haven’t taken him to enough!” Avery dropped to his knees, laughing so hard he couldn’t stand, and the crowd shrieked with laughter and clapped so loudly the roof shook.

Five minutes later, the exhausted pig was back in the crate, and a four-year-old Holcomb stood in the middle of the ring and claimed his prizes consisting of a year’s supply of sausage from one of the local meat-packing plants and a fifty-dollar gift card to the farm store. Caked in lard and dirt, he grinned from ear to ear as they snapped his picture for the local newspaper.

“Good lord, that kid’s tenacious,” Lydia laughed to Avery.

“Just like his mama,” he laughed back and kissed her.

* * *

Lydia workedat cleanup from dinner and Skipper’s successor, Dandy, danced about her feet until she finally handed him a green bean. Both kids were finished with their homework and were supposed to be getting ready for bed when Lillian asked, “Daddy, will you tell us that story again?”

Avery glanced at his daughter and son. “Which story would that be?” he asked, knowing full well what Lillian was asking about.

“The one about the prince and the princess.”

“Oh! That one! Well, you’ve heard that so many times, I’m sure you’d rather hear another one.”

“No!” Landon insisted. “I wanna hear it again! Same story, again!”

“Okay, okay. So, once upon a time there was a princess. She had a vast kingdom. It had been her father the king’s kingdom, and his father the king’s kingdom, and his father the king’s kingdom, for as long as anyone could remember. But one day, the great-grandfather of the princess traded his kingdom for something.”

“Whadda he trade it for?” Landon asked, knowing the answer.

“Girls in bikinis. He traded it for money to see girls in bikinis. Have you ever heard of anything so silly in your life?”

Lillian snorted. “No. Nothing so silly, Daddy.”

“Yeah. So, anyway, he never got his girls in bikinis. He died before he could see them. But the guy he’d traded the kingdom to was just a nobody who raised pigs in the village. Just a pig farmer. A nobody. And it made the princess very mad. You see, she was going to plant money trees on the land in the kingdom and grow more money than anyone had ever seen. And then, when her great-grandfather died, she found out he’d traded his land to the pig farmer for a paltry sum so he could go and see girls in bikinis, and she was furious.”

“And then what happened, Daddy?”

“The dragon, Daddy, the dragon!” Landon said.

“You’re ruining it, Landon!” Lillian shouted.

“Am not!” Landon yelled back.

“Hey, hey! Let me tell my story my way, okay?” Avery snapped, and they both turned their eyes up to him. “Okay. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the princess found out that the pig farmer owned the kingdom and she was really, really angry. So she sent out her men on horses and even sent out the kingdom’s dragon to slay him, but he was a really, really strong pig farmer, and very patient too. One day, as she was riding by in her coach, the pig farmer, all scarred up from the lances and the arrows and his hair singed by the dragon’s fiery breath, looked up to see her stop in front of his pigpen. ‘Fair lady, do you stop today to deal me a death blow?’ he asked. And she slapped him.”

“Oh, no!” Landon mocked. “She slapped him?”

“Yes. Right there, in front of the whole village. But he didn’t let that stop him. Every week, he made bacon and sent it to her. And every week, she got angry and chewed up and spit out the bacon and threw it out the castle window. But one day, she tried to throw the bacon out the window and she couldn’t because it was so delicious.”

“What did she do?” Lillian asked, knowing the answer already.

“She went to the pig farmer and said, ‘You’ve proven that you’re a good pig farmer, and you’ve never tired of sending bacon to me, even though I didn’t appreciate it. Might I ask you: Would you consider planting money trees for me on the land of the kingdom?’ And the pig farmer said, ‘Fair lady, I would be honored.’ And as the pig farmer planted the trees and they grew, the love the princess felt for the pig farmer grew too. And one day, after the trees were all planted and the bacon and sausage all made, they fell in love. And the princess became queen and she made the pig farmer a prince and then the king. They had a princess and a prince and they lived happily ever after. And he still made bacon when he felt like it. The end.”

“No. Not the end, Daddy. They’re still in love and still together,” Lillian corrected.

“It’s you and Mommy!” Landon squealed, laughing. “It’s always you and Mommy!”

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