"I was aaall about them pigs, baby," Much said, grinning over at her, encouraged further into normalcy by her smile. "Red Willow Pig Farm in Red Willow Nebraska." It was funny, the slight midwestern flavour that crept into his voice when he said it, even though it had been nearly ninety years since he'd lived there.
"I worked for the family there, the Schroeders, lived on the farm, mucked out, learned everything there is to know about pigs. They are so smart, Qebhet. We had this one pig, Peppercorn, who- one morning, outta nowhere- started escaping her pen. Five years old she was, never misbehaved a day in her life and then every day, she'd be gettin' out of her pen. And I mean every, single day. Didn't matter what we did, how tough that fence was. Every. Single. Day she'd be sittin' on the front porch, crack of dawn, waitin' for the milkman. And you know why? Not cos she wanted milk. Nope. It was cos the milkman was a right piece of work. See- and this all came out like, months down the line, after I'd repaired that pen so many times- the milkman had a go at Hannah- Hannah was the oldest daughter, brilliant woman- he had a go because she was a Schroeder, and he'd lost his dad in the war. Well, she'd lost two brothers in the war and wasn't having it, and they had this great fight about it. Only, they had it down by the pig pens. And after that, every morning, he'd show up, and every morning, Hannah would be out to collect the milk, and every morning, six hundred pounds of Peppercorn was waiting for him to make sure it didn't happen again. Eventually the milkman married and left town, and Peppercorn stopped escaping, and Hannah told us all what had happened that day to trigger it off. And that's my... kind of depressing tale about scumbag milkmen and hero pigs.
"And uh," he added, a little awkwardly. "Thinkin' about it, maybe a story about mental war wounds wasn't the kind of funny, tall tale you were hoping for? But that's kinda what it was like the country over, I reckon. The war took a long time to scrub outta everybody, didn't it? Sorry..." he grimaced, looking over at her.