News reports showed farmers burning infected pig pens in desperate attempts to stop the disease, and thick smoke sometimes drifted across the distant hills like a warning sign for everyone raising pigs.
Angela grew more frightened each week as the reports became worse. One evening she stood beside Caleb outside the pig pens and said quietly, “Maybe we should sell them while they are still healthy.”
Her voice trembled slightly because she understood that their entire future depended on those animals.
Caleb shook his head stubbornly while looking across the mountain pasture. “This will pass,” he insisted, trying to sound confident even though worry had already begun creeping into his thoughts. “We just need to hold on a little longer.”
The pressure slowly wore him down. Every day he feared waking up to find sick animals in the pens, and every night he lay awake calculating debts in his head while listening to the wind move through the trees.
The stress eventually became so overwhelming that he collapsed from exhaustion and had to be taken to Riverside General Hospital in Summit City where doctors treated him for severe fatigue and anxiety.
He spent more than a month recovering at the home of Angela’s parents in another town while the farm remained mostly unattended.
When he finally returned to the mountain the sight nearly broke his heart. Half the pigs had become thin and weak because feed prices had doubled during the crisis, and the credit union had already begun calling him to remind him that his loan payments were overdue.
Each night heavy rain hammered against the tin roof of the pig shelter while Caleb sat alone listening to the sound and wondering whether his dream had already collapsed.
One evening after receiving another call from a creditor he sat on the dirt floor inside the storage shed and whispered in defeat, “I am finished.”
The words echoed softly against the wooden walls and for the first time he truly believed that everything he had built was already lost.
The next morning he locked the gates of the pig pens and handed the key to Walter Grayson because he could not bear to watch the farm slowly d/i/e in front of him. With heavy steps he walked down the long mountain road carrying nothing but a small backpack and the crushing belief that he had failed his family. In his mind the farm had already become nothing more than a painful memory.