Monty waited until the second pig had struggled its way under the wire, too. At least he knew that it was difficult for them to get in, which would make it difficult for them to get out, and would give him a better chance of nailing both. Once they were well engaged in rooting around in the hay, he slipped quietly out of the cab and took up position with his rifle. The scope was adjusted to its full 9x setting, so the view through it was the same as it had been with the glasses. The pigs were both broadside, facing each other, and Monty picked the one nearest their entry point so that the other would have farther to go to escape. From experience, Monty knew that the moment the first shot was heard, the pigs would crash through that opening and race away at incredible speed. He took a deep breath, held the crosshairs of the scope on a spot about six inches back from the front shoulder of the pig and about six inches up from its belly, pressed the butt firmly into his shoulder to absorb the kick, and squeezed the trigger.
In the absolute silence of the night, the noise of the shot was like a tremendous explosion. In the semi-darkness, the tongue of yellow flame which shot out of the muzzle obscured Monty's view through the scope, but he was concentrating on the lightning-fast actions he needed to perform. He slapped the handle of the rifle bolt with his right hand, bringing it up and back to eject the spent round, pulling the next one out of the clip, and then rammed it back forward to chamber the next shell, and slapped it down to lock it.
It had taken only seconds to reload, but when Monty's eye found the scope and he sighted on the same area again, the scene had changed drastically. The pig he shot had been knocked over by the powerful bullet, and the other had immediately raced for the entry spot and charged through, barely bothering to try to lower itself. Monty distinctly heard the snap as the bottom wire broke, no match for a 300-pound chunk of solid meat, muscle, and bone. The pig which had been hit struggled to follow through the new opening, but Monty ignored it, knowing that he had made a perfect shot and that the pig wouldn't go far before it dropped, although he'd seen pigs race 50 yards before dropping dead from a similar shot. Instead, he swung the rifle to follow the other pig which was streaking along the stack fence. Fortunately it had chosen the long side, giving Monty the few extra seconds he needed to center the scope on his target, coordinate the rifle's speed with the pig's, and squeeze off his shot. Through the scope, he saw the impact when the bullet hit, and heard the grunt as the pig was knocked off stride, but Monty was already reloading. He got the scope back on the pig just as it rounded the corner at the end of the stack, and he fired one last shot at the boar's hindquarters. He was fairly sure that the first shot would have sufficed, but these pigs were hard to kill and he didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to find a wounded pig in some underbrush in the middle of the night. He quickly threw the sleeping bag and rifle into the cab, jumped in, fired up the engine, and raced off toward the place where the pig had disappeared. It was on its side about twenty yards beyond the stack, but when Monty jumped out of the truck it whirled toward him, sharp tusks gleaming in the moonlight. Monty had the revolver in his hand, and he sighted down the barrel, thumbed back the hammer, and let the .357 Magnum do its job in dispatching the pig with a shot between the eyes. He walked back to where the first pig lay, but it had expired by the time he got there.