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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 35

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Our Tavern Is Open for Business (1)

Three days passed, and it was April 22nd.

At the mouth of Lower Hamlet in Sebeom Valley, set in a prime spot, the cauldron-hung furnace in the yard of the Wolf-Catching Tavern boiled away.

"Soup's ready! Makgeolli too!"

Han San's voice cut through the rowdy din and carried across the yard.

The bowls on the tray he ferried about brimmed so full they looked ready to spill at any second, yet not a single drop ran over. His sense of balance was nothing short of exquisite.

Soup thick with chunks of meat, potato, and bobbing arrowroot, and cloudy makgeolli filled to the very brim of bowls rather than cups, settled in front of the customers one after another.

"Aah! Now that's a good broth!"

"Hey, young fellow! One soup combo over here too!"

The wooden benches and straw mats were packed with assorted hunting rabble who'd flocked in from every direction.

The fellows cradling beat-up homemade scrap guns like sacred heirlooms—the kind where pulling the trigger looked likely to send your finger flying farther than the bullet—were the respectable lot, if anything.

Some carried spears, some had bamboo bows slung across their backs, and there was even one lunatic with no visible weapon at all, dressed in a ratty martial arts robe with nothing but a headband around his head.

'Ten men, ten kinds of fool.'

The heat and stink of sweat they gave off mingled with the smell of soup and liquor, and the tavern boiled and bubbled with it all.

Ham Ssang-sim worked her mouth and her ladle at the same time.

"Aigo, slow down and eat, you lot! You'll knock a hole in my cauldron!"

Her mouth was foul, but her ladle was generous.

Badger and wolf were two different beasts, and meat-eaters at that, yet boiled down from their bones, Ham Ssang-sim's cooking and the salt she used without sparing turned it into a rich, hearty broth. Add a cool bowl of cloudy liquor on top, and it was more than enough to charm men worn out from the mountains.

"You hear? That valley right next door. The one where those weird fellows had set up camp."

With their bellies sloshing with soup and liquor, the men's mouths ran loose right along with them.

"Meokbawi Valley, was it? What about it?"

"There's a fellow who says he saw wolf droppings up on the ridge above it."

"Huh, really? Then they sure went over that ridge! Pak said as much. Said he ran into the military police on the ridge beyond there and thought he was going to faint!"

"Lucky he slipped past! Word is the military police are throwing up barricades at every pass and grabbing everyone who comes through to give them a hard time."

Han San kept busy as he worked, ears wide open.

Where someone had spotted wolf sign, how far the military police search had spread.

"You know what I saw on the way up to Upper Daecheong Peak? A wildcat big as a house, strolling along with its eyes half shut!"

"There's a birch wood over yonder. A whole pack of wild boar just went and..."

Sightings of other beasts, too.

As he cleared the gukbap bowls, Han San recorded all of it carefully on the map inside his head.

'Can't take it all at face value, though.'

These were greenhorns. No way what fellows like that said was accurate. The wheat and the chaff were so mixed that the chaff held an overwhelming lead.

That was fine. He had plenty of confidence in his ability to sift it.

'Wolf droppings on the ridge above Meokbawi Valley? They're mistaking a badger latrine for it.'

Reliability: low.

'Military police over there? Yesterday it was near Misiryeong Pass. What, can they fold the earth and travel by magic?'

Reliability: medium-low. If he had to bet, he'd put his money on the Misiryeong side.

'Military police throwing up barricades at every pass. Setting up camp first and tightening the noose whenever something comes up—that's Sawada's style to a tee.'

Reliability: high.

'A wildcat on the way up to Upper Daecheong Peak. Right. Wildcats roamed around there in my past life too.'

Reliability: medium-high.

'Boar in the birch wood. A bit early in the season, but considering the wolf pack and the military police are running wild, there's a good chance they got chased here.'

Reliability: high.

His sense of the terrain from over seventy years rooted in Gangwon and the memory sharpened by his return ran it all through a sieve. The empty husks scattered, and only the solid kernels remained.

Han San set the bowls down with a grin.

"Here, the soup-and-liquor combo! That'll be 50 jeon!"

The customer glared.

"50 jeon? Hey, you robber! Down in town a bowl of soup with barley rice is 10 jeon and a cup of cloudy liquor isn't even 1 or 2 jeon. What's this 50 jeon nonsense?"

Han San didn't bat an eye. Nor did he fire back with some one-dimensional retort like 'then go eat down in town.'

Instead, as if he were the wronged party, he said,

"Sir. This soup isn't just any soup. I'll have you know it's got rare wolf bone in it, the kind you can only eat here. Wolf soup, made for catching wolves."

"What? Wolf soup?"

"And on top of that, this liquor! I hauled this liquor up from the brewery in town with you customers in mind. Carried it on an A-frame carrier, dripping with sweat, to bring you something precious. To wash the dust out of your throats—and I'm not even selling it by the cup, look here. Didn't I serve it up in a great big bowl like this, brimming right to the edge?"

The customer's face soured.

A clap needs two hands to make a sound, and when the man pleaded his case instead, there was nothing to grab hold of and argue against.

"Even so, 50 jeon is a bit..."

"Understood, understood. If you won't have it, well, nothing I can do. I'll just take it back."

When Han San moved to carry it away again, the man snatched the bowl back in a hurry. The liquor sloshed, splashing onto his fingers, and he licked it off.

"Fine! I'll pay, I'll pay! Damn pricey, this is!"

The man dug a crumpled bill out of his pocket.

Pricey. Extortion. Everyone knew it.

But there was no alternative.

The sun was down, their bellies were empty, their bodies worn out. In this mountain hollow, the only place to warm your insides with hot broth and wet your throat with liquor was right here, the Wolf-Catching Tavern.

'No wonder The Tale of Heo Saeng[1] got banned.'

What could they do? Even seeing the foxlike trick plain as day, they had no choice but to swallow it like a mouthful of mustard, eyes watering.

As the night deepened, the monopoly shone all the brighter.

"A night's stay is 40 jeon! That's 10 jeon cheaper than the soup combo. If you need a blanket, add 20 jeon! Pay for breakfast when you bed down and the soup-and-liquor combo is 40 jeon instead of 50! For a total of 1 won, you get a night's sleep, a blanket to cover you, and a hearty meal the next day!"

"Squeezing the liver out of a flea, you damn bastard!"

Cursing all the while, the fellows paid up anyway. Spring may have come, but April in the Seorak mountains was still cold. Sleeping out in the open every which way was a sure way to freeze your face crooked.

"Wrap up the baggage you brought tight and tuck it in while you sleep! We're not responsible if it goes missing!"

Once the day's business ended like that, he barred the door shut.

Without even time to head back to the Han household, Ham Ssang-sim and Han San sat facing each other in the warm corner of the inn. A mountain of money was piled up between mother and son.

"Heavens! Aigo, my..."

Ham Ssang-sim's hands trembled.

A few crumpled 1 won bills, and a heap of grubby, worn 1 jeon bronze coins. Thin, hard 5 jeon and 10 jeon pieces showed up here and there, and among them a few unusually heavy 50 jeon coins gave off a dull gleam.

The reek of metal and the musty smell of paper.

The smell of money!

"H-how much is all this..."

"Let's see."

With deft, exquisite movements, Han San sorted the money out, clack, clack, into neat piles.

The soup-and-liquor combo was 50 jeon, lodging 40 jeon, but in truth all the little extras added up to about 1 won a head. Take in just ten evening customers and that meant a guaranteed 15 won in sales.

A head more or fewer some days, but for three days he'd run it at roughly 15 won.

"47 won and 34 jeon, exactly."

"Omama!"

Ham Ssang-sim was stunned.

The corners of Han San's mouth wouldn't come down either.

'Two mal of cloudy liquor, the straw mats, and the bowls all came to 6 won 60 jeon.'

Look at that. In just three days he'd earned seven times that and still had change left over. And he'd sold the liquor sparingly, so there was still close to half a mal left!

Insane extortion, in the truest sense.

"Of course, this isn't all our money."

With a face full of regret, Han San began peeling money away.

"I have to pay Pi Sun-dae back the 30 won I borrowed soon, so that comes off."

Of that 30 won, about 2 won went to gathering rabbit bones, scrap meat, arrowroot, soybean paste, and the like from the neighbors, and about 3 won went to firewood and other odds and ends. The remaining 25 won he'd pressed into the hands of Pi Sun-dae's underlings and Kim Tae-yang to send down to town for the next batch of liquor and ingredients.

"And out of that we split the rent for the place 8 to 2, with 8 as our share, so..."

A clump of money was torn off at each step, until only a small pile was left.

"These three days. The clean profit left in our hands is 13 won 87 jeon. Take out the money for the mats and the liquor, and the real, real net profit is 7 won 27 jeon."

The initial investment had all been recovered, so from here on it would be nothing but profit—but next to that towering heap of money from before, it couldn't help but look small.

Still, Ham Ssang-sim spared no praise.

"That's no small thing! It's only been three days..."

For a hunter's wife who'd lived her whole life outside the city economy, mountains of meat and grain were far more familiar; a wad of money like this was, truly, a miraculous sight.

"It's all thanks to your cooking, Mother. If the gukbap had tasted bad, those fellows would have torn the place apart long ago."

"What nonsense! With our son standing firm right there, what punk would dare cause a scene? And going back and forth on that rough road to town to buy the goods, and finding out about this whole thing in the first place—that was our son too... I always said our boy was general material!"

"General material's right. I came out of a general's belly."

"Oya. Even when you were in my belly, I thought to myself, ah, this one's a general for sure."

Mother and son cheered each other on, beside themselves with delight.

Just then Ham Ssang-sim spoke up, as if something had occurred to her.

"But San. There sure were a lot of gentlemen asking if you'd sell just the liquor on its own."

"Not yet."

Han San shook his head.

"Not until Kim Tae-yang brings the ingredients tomorrow. Anyway, the cloudy liquor over there is all we've got. We have to sell it tied to the soup so those fellows hold themselves back on their own."

"Right, right. Selling it bundled together like that as a combo, this oma would never have thought of it. Our son really has got a sharp head on him."

"There are generals who use their heads, even among generals. I'm a wise general now, see. And you're the Underground Lady General who gave birth to that wise general! Shorten it and you get wise. Wise general's son, wise general."

"Our son's handsome and clever, but sometimes the way you talk has this whiff of an old man about it... let's stop here. Go any further and I think it'll throw a wrench in this oma's heart."

Once more, mother and son tried to gild each other's faces and failed—an unfortunate little episode.

Not that it mattered much. Han San just got the tiniest bit glum, was all.

In any case.

"Welcome in!"

The next day came around, April 23rd.

"Young fellow. I'm staying again tonight—you really can't run me a tab? Catch a wolf and I'll pay you back double, no, four times over!"

"Can't you knock a little off? Don't be so stingy!"

The ones who ran out of money or demanded credit or begged for a discount, Han San cut off cold.

"Sorry, sir. We're just the kind of folks who meet once and never again."

"But I haven't got any money!"

Han San did not say, then perhaps you ought to just starve, sir.

Smiling, he pointed to one side.

"Try the house across the way."

"What's over there?"

"I don't really know myself. But folks short on money, hmm, they go over there and somehow money turns up for them."

What Han San pointed to was the red brick house set right across from the tavern—Pi Sun-dae's loan-shark gambling den.

"Feels a bit off, somehow... can't you just give me a discount?"

"No."

Han San wouldn't yield an inch.

Had he been an eighteen-year-old youth, his heart might have wavered at the pleas of men old enough to be his uncles, or he might have gotten drunk on the bravado of handing out the shop's goods to look generous, but Han San was, when all was said and done, a worn-and-weathered seventy-four-year-old man.

And what if there was a troublemaker out to make a scene?

"Ah, dammit! A snot-nosed kid—you tell him to knock it off and he ought to just say sure, I'll knock it off, but this li— eeeurgh!"

"The customer is leaving! Come again! With money next time!"

Han San tossed him out with an easy throw, brushing the troublemaker off like a fly.

"Anyone else short on money?"

"...Ah, dug around and turns out I've got it right here."

"I haven't got any, but, hmm, you said money turns up if I go to that brick house...?"

In the end the customers shuffled and paid up, or headed for Pi Sun-dae's mansion.

What became of those who went to the mansion was, of course, none of Han San's concern.

'If they come back out with money, I just welcome them as customers and that's that.'

But Han San watched the backs of those heading for the mansion and smacked his lips in another sense entirely.

'The collateral those fellows will put up...'

What did those bottom-rung hunters have worth pledging as collateral? In the end it came down to their gear, didn't it?

The scrap guns were too dangerous, so set those aside, but steel-forged blades, bows good enough for rough use, vests that stank a bit but would do fine after a wash...

'I'll have to take a look around sometime.'

At the same time, Han San decided to add one more service.

"Father, do you happen to have a moment?"

"I do."

"Then would you help out a little?"

"Mm."

Han San made a sign out of wood and planted it.

[Hunting Gear Repair]

From that afternoon on, the figure of Han Man-seok silently working a whetstone was added to one corner of the Wolf-Catching Tavern.

Sssk, sssk.

Everything that passed through the hands of the Baekdu Mountain trapper came back with its edge sharp and gleaming as ice.

"Father. This fellow's asking if anything can be done about his bear trap. What do you think?"

"A jaw trap. Hand it here."

Han Man-seok took the bear trap in hand with practiced ease.

The bear trap had warped so badly it wouldn't even close, but Han Man-seok hammered and tightened it a few times and it became usable enough for now.

The customer burst out in admiration.

"Huh! This torabasami[2] could actually be fixed? And here I kept lugging it around, couldn't bring myself to toss it."

"As it is, use it one more time and it'll give out completely. After that not even the mountain spirit could fix it. So oil the pressing part a bit and wipe it down now and then."

The son was as cold-hearted as he was talkative, but the father was kind in place of being blunt. He didn't hold back from adding a word of advice to these clumsy hunters, one at a time.

"Oil on this part? Well, the bother of it aside, get it wrong and it'll snap on me... and oil's not free either."

Whether or not to take that advice was, of course, up to the man himself.

Han San stepped in.

"Repair fee, 20 jeon."

"Eh? Looked like he just banged on it a bit, and you call that 20 jeon? Young fellow, you take money awful lightly, don't you?"

"And you, sir, seem to take your forearm awful lightly. Or maybe your ankle. Will you hand over the 20 jeon, or would you rather test out just how well that trap got fixed?"

"Ah... uh, here's 20 jeon..."

"Thank you. Off you go."

Han San took charge of the figuring, the haggling, and the showing-out, so his father could put nothing but his craft to use.

And in the course of it, the occasional decent piece of gear caught his eye too.

'That one?'

Han San's eyes flashed sharp.

[1] The Tale of Heo Saeng (허생전, 許生傳) is a classical Korean satirical story in which a poor scholar grows rich by cornering the market on fruits and horsehair, exposing the fragility of the economy; the regime's discomfort with its critique of monopoly and class made it suspect reading.

[2] Torabasami (도라바사미, from Japanese 虎挟み, "tiger-clamp") is a steel spring-jawed leg-hold trap, the Japanese loanword for the toothed jaw trap set for bears and other large game.

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