To kill time, Monty picked up the field glasses and spent some time just surveying the landscape. He had always liked the other-worldly feel when he was out here alone under a full moon. With the glasses to enhance the available light, he could see almost as clearly as in the daytime. Down by the river, he spotted a couple of the little brush bunnies, half the size of the rangy jackrabbits seen more frequently in the daytime. These were apparently young rabbits, because while he watched they suddenly stopped nibbling grass and leapt in the air, chasing each other around in some game of animal tag. Monty grinned as he watched them frolic, then continued his sweep. High on a hillside, he spotted several mother deer with their fawns, cautiously grazing their way out into the open, leaving behind the safety of the brush they'd been sleeping in during the day. Some muffled exhalation in the air above him caught his attention, and he swung the glasses up to watch a huge Pacific Horned owl silently beating its wings as it passed by on its search for food. Those little rabbits better be paying attention, thought Monty, or one of them will be tonight's dinner. Then he laid the glasses on the seat beside him, turned up his collar against the growing chill, and settled down for a long wait.
Tonight he was lucky. Only about a half hour had passed until the stillness was broken by the distant sound of barking, and he guessed that neighbors' dogs, a few miles upstream, had heard or smelled pigs moving down out of the hills. If he was right, they'd be here in a short time, so he eased the truck door open and picked up the glasses again.
Sure enough, within fifteen minutes he heard snuffling sounds, and a medium-sized pig appeared around the far corner of the stack-yard fence. Close behind was a second boar, and Monty knew now that he was going to have to exercise all his skill, because it was very hard to get more than one pig when night shooting. He watched through the powerful glasses as the pigs headed directly to the spot where they'd broken in before, and Monty watched, curious to see how they did it. Without hesitation, the first pig flopped on his side in a shallow depression, then scrabbled his way under the bottom wire, the wires creaking in protest under the strain. The pig let out an angry squeal as a sharp barb bit into him, but his tough hide easily bent it. Cheap China imports, thought Monty ruefully. Imported wire was about half the price of the sturdier domestic brands, but it served to deter cattle and horses. These pigs were deterred by very little, once they found a food source.