Livestock officer Elena Ramirez climbed from the first truck.
She stopped when she saw the clearing.
“David told me there might be sixty,” she said.
“There are more,” Michael replied.
Ramirez studied the pigs, the broken pens, and the rusted fencing.
Her expression tightened.
An unmanaged herd of that size could not remain on the mountain without inspection.
If the animals were diseased, aggressive, or considered unclaimed feral livestock, the county could order them removed.
Michael would need to prove ownership, arrange testing, reinforce the fencing, and create a plan for humane transport.
“Until we establish where they came from, nobody touches them,” Ramirez said.
“If they have no documented owner, the county will take control.”
Michael handed her the ledger.
Dr.
Owen Price, the veterinarian, moved slowly toward the lead sow with a portable tag scanner.
Michael struck the scoop again, keeping the animal’s attention while the veterinarian approached from the side.
The sow snorted but did not charge.
Price passed the scanner near the damaged tag.
The device beeped.
A registration number appeared on the screen, followed by the farm name Michael had used in 2018 and his full name beneath it.
Ramirez compared the number with the ledger.
“It’s a match,” she said.
Michael closed his eyes for one second.
He had spent five years calling the farm a failure.
Yet the first living proof standing before him still carried his name.
The officers began counting from the edge of the clearing.
David opened an old side gate while Michael used the feed scoop to guide the herd through a narrow section of fencing.
The pigs remembered the metallic sound even after years without him.
Ramirez called out numbers while another officer marked them on a clipboard.
Fifty-three.
Eighty-one.
One hundred twelve.
The pigs kept coming.
Several groups had been hidden in the ravine.
Others emerged from beneath the trees after hearing the herd near the old pens.
The final count took nearly three hours.
There were 178 pigs.
Twenty-six were young piglets.
More than ninety were large enough to be evaluated for sale.
The rest included breeding sows, juveniles, and several older boars that would require careful handling.
Michael stared at the total on Ramirez’s clipboard.
He immediately imagined money, then felt ashamed of it.
The animals were not stacks of cash waiting beneath the trees.
They needed testing, food, fencing, transportation, and veterinary care.
Some had cuts from wire.
One sow limped.
A boar carried a deep scar across his shoulder.
Still, they were alive.
Against disease, winter, predators, hunger, and five years of neglect, they had survived.
Sarah arrived shortly after noon.
Michael had called her from the clearing and spoken so quickly she made him repeat every sentence.
She borrowed a coworker’s car and drove to the mountain without changing out of her factory uniform.
When she stepped through the gate and saw the herd, she covered her mouth.
Michael walked toward her carrying the ledger.
“You kept this,” he said.
“I kept everything,” Sarah replied.
