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white boar jumped up into the air and its cavernous mouth dived onto its enemy. The huge pink jaws crushed the dark head and struck the black boar away at least ten feet. Immediately the black boar dashed off growling, and the white boar was chasing behind. None of the men had seen how it had happened—in the dust a black ear, bigger than an open hand, was twitching and twitching like a giant bat.
    The black boar rushed into the latrine and came out from the other side. The white boar followed. The poles supporting the latrine were smashed and tossed to the ground. The instant the white boar emerged from the other side the latrine collapsed.
    “My outhouse! Oh, my outhouse,” Leng cried. “You two stop your pigs. They’re destroying my property.”
    Second Dog picked up a pitchfork and went for the white boar, shouting, “Goddamn it, I’m going to run you through, white beast!”
    “No, hold!” Ma yelled and threw up his hands.
    “Second Dog, put it down!” his father ordered harshly. The boy froze and dropped the pitchfork.
    The pigs couldn’t be stopped now. The black boar seemed to be recovering from the giddiness caused by the loss of the ear and stood against the adobe wall. With its entire face covered with blood, it looked so monstrous that the white boar faltered in front of the gruesome pig-face. The black boar sent out a thundering roar to the sky and started charging at the white boar that was shaken a little.
    The white boar began to dodge its desperate enemy. Gradually the black boar turned to chasing the white boar, jumping about and biting away at the pink rump and flanks. By now both Liao and Ma wanted to stop the fight, but it was too late, impossible. Nobody dared come close to the pigs, because the black boar was biting at anything within reach. It pursued the white boar so incessantly that the larger pig simply didn’t have a chance to stop to put itself together for a real fight.
    Then the white boar turned and was headed toward the front gate, the black boar following behind. With a crash the wooden gate disappeared in a cloud of dust.
    When the men could see clearly again, both pigs were out of sight. The men ran out and saw them rolling in the wheat field across the road. The white boar now stopped escaping and was engaged in the battle. Wheat seedlings and dark clods were flying around the two pigs that were kicking, jabbing, biting, tearing, grumbling.
    As the men were going up to them, both boars stepped back a little, then dashed into each other. The two heads collided with such a clash that both animals staggered and fell to their sides, whining in pain. Around them, the wheat field was scarred with dark patches of soil stripped of the green seedlings.
    “We must stop them. They’re ruining Sun Fu’s crops,” Liao said loudly to Ma, Leng, and the villagers who had just arrived to watch.
    Leng went back to pick up a plank of the gate. “Give me a hand,” he said to Ma. “We’ll use this to separate them.”
    Ma carried the other end of the plank. They walked to the boars, which were knocking at each other with their snouts.
    Liao went to pick up the other plank of the gate. With the help of another man, he carried it into the field. They tried the strategy of inserting the plank horizontally between the pigs, and once the two were separated, each plank would hold a boar back. Liao kept approaching them from the side of his own pig, because he thought it knew its master and was less likely to turn upon him. After trying a few times, Liao and his helper succeeded in putting their plank between the pigs. He kept yelling at his boar, “Stop it! Stop, you beast that doesn’t know your own parents!”
    For a short while the black boar seemed to calm down a little, but it started again. The dark body glided over the plank andlanded right on the white boar. With loud growls the two pigs began rolling about again. “Heavens, that black boar wants nothing but death,” someone in the