WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 17

──────

The Beast's Den (2)

Climbing along the ridge, Han San and his father soon turned off onto a side path. It led to Meokbawi Valley, the ravine that pressed up against the village, and toward the upper reaches, where almost no one ever set foot.

Whether it was the early hour or just good luck, Deok-tae's clique—who lounged around Meokbawi Valley day in and day out, throwing their weight around—were nowhere to be seen.

The whole of Meokbawi Valley belonged to father and son.

"Wash up."

At his father's word, Han San stripped off his clothes at once.

The April stream water cut to the bone, but the two men sank into it without so much as a groan.

"Hoo!"

They washed their faces, scrubbed their hair, and wiped away the oily film that had seeped out over their bodies during sleep.

Once he had rinsed himself down, Han Man-seok scooped up wet earth from the streambed.

"Rub it on."

"Yes."

Han San did as he was told, smearing mud under his arms, on the back of his neck, below his ears, and at his groin. He rinsed it off, packed on another layer, then rinsed again. Han Man-seok spoke.

"The cigarettes."

"I left them behind, like you said."

"Good."

Han Man-seok nodded.

"When you go to another's house, you wipe out your scent first. Tiger, wolf, badger—it's all the same."

A long explanation, rare for him, carried on a little further along with the splashing of water.

"They mustn't know you've come until you're standing right at the inner door."

"Yes, Father."

The sweat glands he'd painted over so many times pulled tight. The smell of earth and the raw scent of water covered his whole body.

Father and son came out of the water. His father returned to his familiar silence. Han San did not find the quiet uncomfortable.

While he waited to dry, with only the sound of running water on the stream above, Han San looked down without thinking.

The middle and lower reaches of Meokbawi Valley came into full view.

'The Great Flood of the Gap-sul Year.'

Next summer, on the day the rain would pour down as if the sky had been ripped open, Meokbawi Valley would burst open from that hillside like a cracked crock. Just like that it would sweep down all at once over the Middle Hamlet and the Lower Hamlet—the earth and the water and the trees and the stones, and...

[ "The Great Lords approach!" ]

The instant that scene flashed through his mind, Han San spoke without meaning to.

"Father."

"Mm."

"Do you think there are still tigers?"

Silence.

Only the sound of wind shaking the branches filled the gap.

Then.

"There would be."

That was his father's answer.

Han San turned his head. His father was gazing not at him but into the current of the valley stream.

"Would there be one near here?"

"There is."

This answer came quickly, and unlike the one before, it was no guess.

Han San looked at his father. His father's eyes were still fixed on the current, on some place that was not now and not here.

His father spoke.

"And I know where it is, too."

Han San faltered. That was something beyond what he'd expected.

He asked before he could stop himself.

"Where..."

"When the time to know comes, you'll know."

The light came back into Han Man-seok's eyes. He reached out and took up his clothes.

"Better not to know until then."

The tone of the Baekdu Mountain[1] hunter allowed no further questions. Once he had dressed, he flapped and straightened the slack folds of cloth that hung loose on his wasted frame and looked back at his son.

"Let's go."

Han San could only nod.

"...Yes."

Father and son left Meokbawi Valley. Leaving the rushing of the stream behind them, they began climbing the mountain again.

Han Man-seok still walked in front, and Han San followed behind.

A coo-coo sounded.

Somewhere a bird he didn't know cried out.

A bee, bee, bee sound spread—far off, then near, then far off again. Whether it was insects calling or fresh-sprouted leaves rubbing in the wind he could not tell, and the sounds circled his ears like the stream water they'd left below.

Han San wiped his brow. For an instant the back of his hand blocked his sight, then revealed it again.

His father's back was there before his eyes.

The back of his father walking ahead looked a little large, then a little small, then thump, press—the sound of the staff pushing into the earth, that sound came faint, then somehow smaller and slightly twisted, then blurred as if drifting away into muddy water.

Press—the sound of one more staff pushing into the ground reached him, bluish, muffled as if waterlogged.

That was when it happened.

"Don't worry."

Han San flinched.

Han Man-seok, his back still turned, said it flatly without breaking his stride.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Han San drew in a breath.

The air of that hour between dawn and morning filled his lungs. The strange sensation that had been seeping in from the edges of his fingers withdrew without a trace.

When he raised his head and looked around, the morning sun hung far off over Daecheong Peak, and the mountain it cast its light down upon was the very mountain he had known all his life.

'To think I let the mountain bewitch me.'

It had to be because of the talk they'd shared in Meokbawi Valley.

Afraid this back he'd met again would be torn helplessly from him a second time, the soul of a man of seventy-four had taken fright like a child. And so the mountain, not minding becoming a single raindrop, had bored into that small crack in his heart.

Han San gave a bitter smile and lifted his head straight.

He spoke firmly.

"I won't let you go."

"Mm."

As if that exchange had become a talisman, his father's back no longer twisted or blurred.

They climbed a good while longer and reached their destination at last.

In one corner of a slope that fell away as if sheared off, beneath the roots of a great oak.

"Here."

The spot Han Man-seok pointed to with the tip of his staff. Where the slope and the shade overlapped to form a blind spot, a hole the size of a grown man's head sat waiting.

Han San set down his A-frame carrier[2]. He rolled his lightened shoulders a couple of times and carefully drew near.

The eyes of a seventy-four-year-old mountain man, restored once more to sharpness, moved busily.

The earth around the hole had been packed smooth and glossy—proof that it saw frequent use. On the oak roots that hung down like a curtain and at their base, claw marks were plain to see. Territorial markings.

'No question this is the main entrance...'

Han Man-seok tapped, tapped at the surroundings with his cloth-wrapped stick.

"There, and there."

Han San nodded. At the spots he'd indicated were smaller holes. They say rabbits dig three burrows, but the truth is every animal does the same.

Near the most tucked-away of the burrows was something interesting—droppings piled inside a small pit.

'The latrine.'

A badger is a clean creature. It makes a separate privy outside its den. Looking at the amount of dung heaped in the privy and how dry it was, he understood why his father had said one male and two pups.

"Tracks of a big one."

Han San said it, studying the prints near the latrine. The scars the forepaws had left in the earth were deep and long.

"An old one."

Han Man-seok nodded and picked up the wire.

"Let's get ready."

The hunt in earnest had begun.

A pair of pliers would have made it easy, but there were none, so another way had to be found. Without using a blade or any other tool, Han Man-seok took hold of the wire with his bare hands.

With his knobby-knuckled hands he settled on one point, folding and unfolding it over and over, and the wire, sturdy as it was, seemed to stiffen and grow brittle, then snap!—it broke clean off as if it had simply dropped away. The same principle as bone undergoing a fatigue fracture.

From the severed end rose a raw iron smell and a faint heat.

Helping at his side, Han San clicked his tongue in awe.

'He's incredible.'

Han Man-seok explained.

"You have to find the knack. Otherwise it just bends."

Han San understood what he meant.

If your control of force and balance is clumsy, the fatigue spreads out along the line instead of concentrating at the folded point. Then no matter how many days you fold it, it only keeps losing strength like wrought iron, and you end up throwing away tens of centimeters of good wire.

"Try it."

"Yes."

Han San did so. Seeing his son break off the wire without difficulty, Han Man-seok raised one corner of his mouth ever so slightly, then took hold of an ash branch near the mouth of the badger den.

"The terrain happens to be good."

Han Man-seok hooked the loop he'd made from wire over the end of the branch. He adjusted its circumference and width, drew it taut, and laid it before the hole.

"We'll make a spring-snare[3]."

A kind of noose. When the animal pushes its head in, the wire tightens with the spring's force and yanks it up into the air.

He bent the end of the wire and fixed it firmly to the bent-down tree, then carved a wooden wedge to serve as the trigger and set it precisely in place. Where the badger den's mouth had been wide open just minutes before, a trap of death now lay set.

"Try it on one of the other entrances."

"Yes."

Han San steadied his breath. It was his turn to hide the seasoned skill of seventy-four cleverly within the clumsy touch of eighteen.

At first he held the line and put on a show of pondering, feigning unfamiliarity. But that was all, for once his hands began to move there was no hesitation in them.

The eye to pick out the right one from the countless branches hanging near the mouth, the delicate fingertips that read the limit of the taut spring, the sure skill of twisting and knotting the wire, and the finishing touch of driving in the wedge to fix it without startling the surroundings. Nothing too much, nothing too little—it came out exactly right.

Han Man-seok came over.

Tap, tap. He prodded around the trap with the tip of his staff and checked the strength of the wedge with his hand.

Not a gap in it.

"..."

Had it been Ham Ssang-sim, she would have gathered the whole village together and thrown a feast over what a genius her son was, but her husband only nodded.

Though with more force in the motion than usual.

"Good!"

At that short, strong word, Han San's chest swelled.

A while later a spring-snare lay before the last of the burrows as well, and before all three badger holes stood finely made gallows.

"Now we'll light a fire and send smoke down the air holes."

A textbook badger den raid. When the creatures came bursting out, startled by the sudden calamity, their necks would catch right in the snares.

But Han Man-seok was not finished.

"A den this size usually has a back exit."

Han Man-seok's gaze went above the main entrance of the badger den, beyond where the slope rose up.

Han San spoke without delay.

"I'll take it."

His father's leg was bad, so of course he was the one who should go up.

Of the two sticks he'd brought, Han Man-seok handed over the one that wasn't wrapped in cloth—a wooden staff carved from birch.

"Take this. There's no ash up there, so you can't set a spring-snare."

A spring-snare was simple and quick, but it depended heavily on the terrain.

Han San thought a moment, then spoke.

"Should I set a different trap?"

Han Man-seok nodded and taught him the workings of a few simple wire traps.

"Give it a try. Though it's an old one, so it may slip past the trap."

Han San clicked his tongue too. He had that in mind as well.

Han Man-seok went on.

"Once you're up there the path will split. Left is the ridge, right is a scree field. If it catches in the trap, good, but if it dodges out, which of the two it takes is the mountain spirit's business. Block only one side. If it goes the way you didn't block, let it go without regret."

At his father's eye—reading the terrain through without even seeing it and narrowing the possibilities down—Han San felt a fresh wave of respect.

"Understood."

Han San pulled his rubber shoes on tight and started up the slope. Like a mountain goat clinging to the rock, he sprang up without a sound.

Han Man-seok watched with his brow drawn tight, and only when his son had climbed up onto the crest of the slope did he straighten his shoulders.

Having reached the top of the cliff in one go, Han San swallowed his admiration.

'Exactly right.'

It was just as his father had said. Before the back exit beyond the slope, the path split out like the ribs of a fan.

Left was a narrow ridge path. Right was a scree field where great boulders lay scattered in a jumble.

'I could pick up a few snakes there too.'

The amount wouldn't be much, though. Badgers eat snakes. That was probably one of the reasons the den had settled here.

His thoughts wandered.

'If it bolts that way it'll be a headache...'

Snakes aside, if it hid among the rocks there'd be no catching it at all. So was the right answer to block the right side, to keep it from going over there?

After thinking it over a moment, Han San gave a bitter smile. If you blocked one side you couldn't block the other—no matter what, it came to the same thing.

Unless he had two bodies of his own...

It was when his thoughts had reached that point.

'Hm?'

Han San's eyes, with their view opened up now that he'd climbed the slope, caught sight of someone far off, coming up along the ridge.

A figure visible through the morning light. A swaggering gait.

'Kim Tae-yang?'

Han San's gaze went cold. As for why he was here, the answer was obvious.

'He followed us?'

The handprints he'd left on the boy's neck yesterday hadn't been lesson enough, it seemed.

'Insolent bastard.'

He dared try to interfere with the first hunt with his father?

Anger surged up, but Han San soon furrowed his brow for a different reason. He'd spotted something clamped in Kim Tae-yang's mouth as he came huffing up the mountain.

'A cigarette?'

Han San swallowed a dry laugh. A fellow who hadn't even washed was now puffing cigarette smoke all over the place?

'Lucky the wind isn't blowing this way right now...'

He'd nearly ruined the hunt completely. Han San's eyes, colder still, traced Kim Tae-yang's path.

The fellow fumbled along the trail he and his father had climbed, then stopped at a certain point. Then he hurriedly and clumsily hid himself behind a tree.

'He's spotted Father getting ready to light the fire.'

Han San retraced in his mind the paths they'd come along.

The fellow had spotted his father there, stopped, hidden, and the final spot he'd end up at if he tried to come a little closer was... And if he came to stand there reeking like that, no less...

Han San's eyes deepened.

'It's your own freedom to come into the mountain. But freedom comes with responsibility.'

A way to seal off the badger's escape route a hundred percent had presented itself.

[1] Baekdu Mountain (백두산) is the highest peak on the Korean peninsula, straddling the present-day border with China; long held sacred in Korean tradition, it carries deep prestige as the homeland of the legendary tigers and master hunters.

[2] An A-frame carrier (지게, jige) is a traditional Korean wooden back-rack used to haul firewood, crops, and game over mountainous terrain.

[3] A spring-snare (챌목매) is a traditional snare trap in which a bent-down sapling, held under tension by a trigger, snaps upright when an animal disturbs the noose, yanking the prey into the air.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried