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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 26

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Pheasant Hunting (1)

The teamwork among the Sebeom Valley layabout trio went more smoothly than expected.

Kim Tae-yang kneaded the mud-cement nice and sticky, Im Baechil hauled it over, and Han San spread it across the walls with his trowel.

With the chicken coop wire mesh serving as a skeleton, the mud-cement filled the gaps in the wood and the openings in the mesh, wrapping the house in a kind of shell.

'If Go Tae-chon found out his coop wire had become the backbone of our house, he'd flop over and pound the dirt all over again.'

He'd given them the coop wire, and the idea of buying the Leghorn too. The man was practically a giving tree. Han San found himself looking forward to whatever Go Tae-chon would hand over next.

"Wow! Hyung, are we fixing up our house!?"

Watching the mud-cement get slathered all over the outer walls, Bada marveled and bounced up and down.

Han San smiled and nodded.

"That's right. You know that wind that blows in next to you while you sleep and makes you cold? Once this is done, all of it gets covered up."

"Really!? I've been waking up cold all the time anyway!"

"That's because you kick off your blanket and roll around, you little punk."

Ham Ssang-sim spared no admiration either.

"When you lugged that cement back, I wondered what on earth you meant to do with it, but my son had a plan all along. Where did our boy learn to do all this?"

"At the new road worksite. I'd go now and then for pocket money, did day labor there."

"Aigo, is that so? And here this old mother only nagged you for running off to play. I feel bad about it now."

"Aw, it's nothing. I really was running off to play. I just picked this stuff up from my friends while we were at it."

When he talked to his friends, he said he'd learned it from his family. When he talked to his family, he said he'd learned it from his friends. Two citation sources, each citing the other—a paper-swap style of regression laundering at work.

The work that started in the morning wrapped up around the time the sun was teetering at its peak.

"Ah, thought I was gonna die! So it does end after all."

"It, it ended faster than I thought..."

At the way Tae-yang and Baechil each reacted, Han San grinned.

"One sack of cement is less than you'd think, you know."

Even mixing in dirt instead of sand had its limits. Coating the entire outer wall was out of the question, so it came down to patching over the spots where the damage was worst.

A patch job, literally.

Still, Han San felt proud.

'This is plenty for keeping out the biting drafts. The rain won't leak as much from the wall side either.'

That was enough. The flood coming next year couldn't be stopped by this much anyway.

If it held up until then, fine—just take the practical gains and call it done.

Han San washed his hands and stroked his little brother's head.

"Bada."

"Yeah, hyung?"

"Cement gets thirsty a lot, you know? When you're running back and forth, sprinkle a bit of water on it now and then. Not too much—once or twice a day, for about three or four days. You can do that, right?"

"Yeah!"

Having handed even the curing follow-up off to his young brother, the petite house project came to a close.

"Time for a snack!"

Right on cue, Ham Ssang-sim came out balancing a basket on her head.

Steaming potatoes, pigeon-and-arrowroot egg soup from the bird Han San had caught, and badger suyuk. The salty, oily broth, salted with a generous hand, soaked right into bodies worn out from hard labor.

Kim Tae-yang clicked his tongue in wonder.

"Wow! It's good! Your mom is a really good cook."

"Because she's my mother."

Han San tore into a pigeon leg and puffed out his chest.

"For the record, I can cook a little too. You saw me clean that pigeon earlier, right?"

"Oh, really? Then how come I've never once tasted your cooking?"

Han San did not, of course, say it was because this was before he'd spent seventy-four years living as a widower.

"Why would I cook for you? Who do you think you are?"

"Why not? We're close, you and me."

"No, like I said, who are you to—ugh, this idiot, every single thing out of his mouth, the wiring in his head is really, ah. Should I just stomp him flat?"

"D-don't do that, San... folks from the same village shouldn't be fighting..."

"I'm only holding back because of Baechil hyung, I swear. Tae-yang, hurry up and bow your head. Say thanks."

"...Baechil hyung... thank you? There, happy??"

"Y-you don't have to go all formal about it..."

"Ah, dammit, you stupid—no, hyung. You talk like that, so why's the corner of your mouth turned up?"

"N-no it's not! It didn't turn up... hehe."

"Ah, come on! Hey, hey, San. Isn't this a bit much?"

"What's much about it? But yeah, the way you go all 'sir' and 'please,' Tae-yang—watching it from the side, there's a kind of cringe to it that's hard to put into words. Just call him hyung and leave it there."

A meal eaten among friends had a rowdiness all its own, different from a table shared with family.

After he lost his parents in his past life, he'd nearly forgotten this taste. Han San swallowed a bitter smile, relief and regret tangled together, at the noise he'd buried for close to seventy years.

He set down his emptied bowl and spoke.

"Since we're on the subject, I'll handle dinner. You two free for a bit after this?"

The two reacted to the offer in starkly different ways.

"Oh, really? You gonna take us to town and buy us something?"

"T-to town? The sun's already up that high and you want to go all the way to town... a-and isn't it a bit dangerous for the three of us to go? Sure, you went alone just fine, San, but..."

Han San shook his head and snickered.

"Town, nothing. You know where that meat you two just ate came from. Let's hunt and eat."

"Hunt!?"

"H-hunt!?"

Kim Tae-yang asked it with excitement, Im Baechil with alarm.

Han San nodded.

"That's right. There's rabbits and pheasants around here. And that charcoal Baechil hyung brought—using it just to soak up moisture would be a waste, wouldn't it?"

"Right! We oughta use some of it for grilling meat too. That's what makes charcoal worth a smile!"

Kim Tae-yang swung his arm and crowed in triumph, but Im Baechil went pale.

"S-San! We can't hunt pheasants right now, can we? You know, Uncle Tae-chon said anytime after March it's the closed season[1] for pheasants..."

'Oh.'

A flicker of interest crossed Han San's face. He'd known it himself, of course, but he hadn't expected Im Baechil to know it too.

In this era, the Government-General placed strict limits on hunting outside harmful wildlife eradication. Pheasants and waterfowl in particular could only be taken from November to February, and outside that window they cracked down to keep anyone from catching them.

"If a police constable catches you, you'll pay a huge fine! You could get beaten with a club, and on top of that..."

But the things Im Baechil rattled off in his fear only acted on Kim Tae-yang like oil on a fire.

"Oh, damn, so this is poaching, huh? Let's hurry up and go do it! My mouth's watering, man."

"T-Tae-yang! Why's your mouth watering..."

"It's cool, damn. And anyway, why would the police bastards crawl all the way out to this mountain hollow? What's there to worry about?"

Kim Tae-yang looked like his whole body was itching for it. Pheasant hunting—and then grilling the catch right over the coals to eat. What man could refuse that temptation?

Im Baechil was exactly that man. He cupped his face in hands the size of pot lids, his shoulders trembling.

"S-still, if we get caught somehow... Old Woman Wangdae up in the Upper Hamlet says if you kill too many animals the Mountain Lord[2] gets angry..."

"Ah, come on, you actually believe that quack nonsense?"

"It's n-not quack nonsense! That granny's got a real gift... a-and a gun! To catch a pheasant you've gotta fire a gun, and if there's a gunshot..."

Han San pulled the slingshot from his waistband and said flatly,

"That's no problem. I'm gonna shoot with this."

Seeing the slingshot for the first time, Im Baechil blinked. Han San went on.

"But Baechil hyung's right too. It is dangerous. If you're really uneasy, just go home, hyung. Tae-yang and I will handle it."

"Uh, uh..."

Im Baechil seized up with a jolt.

Han San and Kim Tae-yang going off to poach. Together. Leaving only him out.

Whether the two of them sat cackling and tearing into pheasant meat while he sat alone, miserably chewing potatoes, or whether the two of them got hauled off by a police constable, bawling their eyes out, while he slept safe and warm under his blanket—he couldn't bring himself to face either one...

"O-okay. Let's go together..."

"Ah, come on. Back and forth, back and forth! You're just here to slow us down, aren't you!"

Kim Tae-yang glared, but Im Baechil steeled his resolve.

"I-I won't slow you down. I don't think I can really do anything, but you might need someone to keep watch, and I can handle the heavy lifting, and also..."

"And what."

"And... come to think of it, I think I saw a few pheasants near the charcoal kiln today..."

At Im Baechil mumbling along, Kim Tae-yang made a face like he couldn't believe it.

Han San barely held back from bursting out laughing.

"Yeah, let's go together, hyung. Show us the way there."

Han San set out from the house with his friends.

At home, "I'm gonna run around with my friends for a bit" was all it took. It was what he'd done every single day before the regression, so the family was used to it, and thanks to the trust he'd built up lately, he even got away without a smack to the back.

Im Baechil's charcoal kiln sat on a mountainside a little ways off from Sebeom Valley. On the path over one ridge, Kim Tae-yang carried on with his dying moans.

"Ah, I'm dying! What kind of person builds a charcoal kiln this far out? Just build it in front of the house, huh? Can't you?"

"It, it'd start a fire... and if you build it by the house, hauling the wood gets way too heavy..."

"What are you talking about? Shouldn't it be by the house so you can do it quick and easy?"

At Kim Tae-yang's round, wide eyes, it was Han San, watching from beside them, whose chest tightened.

"Honestly, this layabout. Of course you wouldn't know, you've never made charcoal. Hey, Tae-yang. Which is lighter, charcoal or the wood you make it from?"

"Charcoal."

"Right, charcoal's lighter. Which means?"

"Which means what?"

"...Forget it. Just forget it."

Han San rattled the carrying sack slung over his shoulder, fed up.

Kim Tae-yang kept stealing glances at that sack of his.

"More to the point, San..."

"What."

"That... the thing in your sack right now."

Inside the sack was a single stick wrapped in cloth.

Han San's father, Han Man-seok, had carried cloth-wrapped sticks around plenty too. But maybe because the silhouette had changed, or the way the cloth was wound was different, or maybe simply because the owner had changed, this cloth-wrapped stick caught the eye more than it had back then.

But Han San said it without batting an eye.

"This? A switch."

Kim Tae-yang smacked his lips.

"That... for a switch, the shape's awfully..."

"Tae-yang. You want to believe me when I say it, or do you want me to prove it with action?"

Kim Tae-yang shut his mouth. He knew well enough that a switch existed to whip the daylights out of somebody's shins.

"That, uh, that's an awfully thick switch..."

"It's a thick switch."

"Yeah..."

Im Baechil, for his part, never caught on to anything odd about this cloth-wrapped stick, so the group's steps could carry on without a hitch.

'Not that I plan to use it this time.'

It wasn't only because of the gunshot.

They say a lion goes all out even to catch a rabbit, but that was only possible because the lion could keep serializing [Unlimited Uses of My Claws]. He couldn't burn one of his seven bullets on something like a pheasant.

Even so, Han San had chosen to bring it along anyway.

'You never know what'll happen in the mountains.'

If it turned out to be needless worry and ended with him just lugging a somewhat heavy stick back and forth, that beat being helpless when something did happen—a hundred times over, a thousand times over.

Walking on like that, they soon reached the brushy thicket near Im Baechil's charcoal kiln.

"Huff, huff... h-here. This is where I saw them."

Im Baechil said, wiping away sweat.

Kim Tae-yang was completely spent. Panting, he took a look around and then threw a fit.

"I don't see anything. Ugh... Baechil hyung, we didn't make this trip for nothing, did we?"

"N-no. I definitely saw them..."

"Then why's there nothing? If you mixed it up with somewhere else, just say so right now—"

"Shh."

That last word came from Han San.

In one hand he held the slingshot, in the other a stone for ammunition, and he tilted his head. Sure enough, the sun reached the spot well, and there were thickets all over for the birds to bury their heads in—a fine place for pheasants to wander.

Han San's gaze settled on one of those spots.

A single pheasant feather fallen on the ground. And beside it, a runny clump of droppings still holding a bit of warmth.

Han San nodded.

"Still here."

[1] The closed season (금렵기, 禁獵期) was the colonial Government-General's legal ban on hunting designated game outside a set window; pheasants and waterfowl could be taken only from November to February, with poaching punishable by fines.

[2] The Mountain Lord (산군, 山君) is the tutelary mountain deity of Korean folk belief, traditionally identified with the tiger, who was thought to punish those who killed too freely within his domain.

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