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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 37

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Our Tavern Is Open for Business (3)

"Uh, yeah. Right, see you..."

Go Tae-chon said it while avoiding eye contact, like a weasel grabbed by the scruff of the neck.

Pi Sun-dae cackled.

"He's awful jealous of how the tavern's doing. Keeps sidling over wanting a piece for himself—you've no idea what a pest he is."

"Oh, is that so? Go-ajae, you should've just said something. Well? How about it—fancy putting in an investment?"

Go Tae-chon's face went red.

"Forget it, Han San. Where would that bastard ever get money to invest?"

"Aw, come now. There are three things nobody in this world can ever know. One is the cards your opponent's holding in a game. Another is the depth of a man's wallet."

"And what's the third one, then?"

"Well, that one is..."

Unable to stomach any more, Go Tae-chon shot to his feet.

"Uh, uh—I just remembered some terribly important biz-ness! Catch you later!"

Han San called after him as he scrambled out the gate.

"Go-ajae! If you ever want to invest, just say the word, anytime! My miii-nd is completely o-pen!"

Go Tae-chon's stride quickened to a marathon runner's pace.

Han San and Pi Sun-dae burst out laughing at the same instant, neither waiting on the other.

Back at the Wolf-Catching Tavern, Han San got back to work.

"Soup platter, coming up!"

"Hey now! It's rare to get someone ordering just the soup—gave you a good heaping portion!"

He bustled around, carrying out dishes and clearing them away, peering outside whenever he got the chance.

'About time they showed up.'

As if the thought had been waiting for its cue, a commotion broke out beyond the gate.

"Awright, awright!"

Kim Tae-yang led the way, his lackeys driving an ox cart in behind him. The cart was loaded high with liquor and provisions.

"Aigo, we finally made it! I swear I thought I was gonna die!"

They were a sorry-looking lot.

Unlike Han San, they couldn't take the mountain trails, so getting down to the Inje town center meant looping the long way around along the new road.

'And dragging an ox cart on top of that. They can haul plenty of cargo, but they can't cut the travel time the way a man running or taking a shortcut can.'

A full half-day to reach the town center—and since you can't set out on the road in the dark, you have to snatch a few hours of sleep and wait for daybreak, then another full half-day back to Sebeom Valley...

Reduced to something small and pitiful, like a beast of burden, Kim Tae-yang practically crawled over to give Han San his report.

"Hey, San... I scraped together everything worth the money, like you told me. Makgeolli, soju, salt, pork bones, potatoes, sorghum, millet, flour—whatever it took..."

"Let's have a look."

Han San ran his eyes over the goods. The quantities roughly matched, so he gave a jerk of his chin.

"Tae-yang stays. The rest of you, go hand the goods over to my mother. Tidy up a bit while you're at it."

It was the manner of a man ordering a dog around, but Pi Sun-dae's lackeys didn't dare make a peep and did as told. The pecking order had been settled days ago.

Han San asked Kim Tae-yang, "Anything happen?"

Kim Tae-yang cleared his throat.

"Ah, um. You know that badger oil? While I was in town, I gave it to my noona as an opening gift."

"And?"

"She really loved it. The color of the oil especially—said it was real fine. So when I told her my friend's father was a Baekdu Mountain hunter, and the three of us caught the badger and pressed the oil together, she got real interested and told me to bring you this."

With that, Kim Tae-yang pulled something out of his shirt.

It was a single business card.

'South Jade Pavilion. Kanezora Matsuko.'

Han San's eyes narrowed as he took the card.

Kim Tae-yang went on, "She said let's meet sometime, if you can find the time. Show that at the entrance and they'll let you straight in."

South Jade Pavilion's Kim Mal-ja.

A real line of connection had formed with the woman—one of the three sisters of the night—who would come to hold this whole Inje region in her grip.

Han San nodded.

"Sure. If the chance comes up, I'll pay her a visit."

"Yeah."

"Anything else? Like checkpoints?"

Kim Tae-yang took a sip of water.

"Ah... well, getting in and out of town was fine. The checkpoint they used to run at the bridge in front of Hapgang was gone clean away too."

With the bounty posted, they'd loosened things up so the men coming to hunt wolves could pass through easily.

'This is Tono's style.'

He casts his net wide. Then the moment everyone's grown used to it, he draws it tight without warning.

"How was the road?"

"Not a whisker of the robber gangs. And it's not like they steered clear once they got a look at me and the uncles—it was just empty. Dead empty, literally."

Han San nodded. Of course it would be.

Because—

"Every time you crossed a ridge, there'd be some military police officer dug in with a constable and an assistant he'd dragged along, the whole lot of them camped out."

"Mm."

He'd already heard, from talk traded among the greenhorn hunters, that the military police were dug in all over the place.

'This is Sawada's style.'

Every bit of manpower freed up by emptying out the Inje town center would be in his hands, and he was using it to wrap the whole mountain in layer upon layer of barbed wire.

How could a bunch of bandits possibly hold out without tucking their tails and hiding?

"So those military police bastards squeezed us hard. Side dishes, meat—they'd just grab the stuff, calling it a checkpoint tax. What're you gonna do when men with guns tell you to hand it over?"

Kim Tae-yang was practically in tears.

"Lucky thing, dammit, that I guarded the liquor with my life. See? I brought back every last drop just the way I bought it in town."

Han San snorted under his breath.

'Guarded it, my foot. They didn't touch the liquor in the first place—scared they'd reek of drink on duty and get chewed out by that Sawada.'

This too was Sawada's style.

Part of why he'd set aside an especially large budget for liquor was that he'd figured he'd lose less of it on the road.

But rather than dwell on any of that, Han San instead pulled a fifty-jeon coin from his shirt and held it out.

"It's fine, you punk. A grown man, with that crying face. Take this for your trouble."

"Heok! Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty!"

Kim Tae-yang took the money and grinned ear to ear. He'd been worried about getting chewed out—how could he take twenty-five won and bring back only this much?—and instead here he was being handed fifty jeon.

'Is this the measure of a Baekdu Mountain man?'

Han San paid no mind to whatever Kim Tae-yang was thinking.

In fact, he didn't even ask how much had been spent on the goods, or how much money was left.

There were three reasons, and they were: obviously the kid had skimmed off the top, obviously the kid had skimmed off the top, and obviously the kid had skimmed off the top.

'Money leaks when you put work in another man's hands.'

The seventy-four-year-old who'd died before seeing the nineties was forgiving toward that universal cultural heritage known as pocketing the difference.

If you wanted one more reason: in this era, the round trip with a cart was a [genuinely] dangerous job.

'And you mustn't be stingy with the life of a man you put to work.'

Again, as long as the quantity roughly matched what he'd expected, that was enough.

'That'll see us through ten days of business.'

By simple math, sales of around a hundred and fifty won. Factoring in the menu that grew as the stock came in, even more than two hundred was possible.

'Even after handing Pi Sun-dae a twenty percent cut for the spot, that's over a hundred won clear, no question.'

The borrowed money was already paid back and all the incidentals settled, so that was net profit alone. The warm satisfaction in Han San's chest wouldn't fade.

Just then, Kim Tae-yang, who had tucked the coin away, studied Han San's face and ventured something.

"Hey, but, San. There's one problem..."

"What problem?"

"Prices at the market have gone clean crazy. The town's packed full of outsiders, so there's no goods to be had. Butcher's, grain shop, brewery, you name it... next time I go, the prices'll be even higher. What do we do?"

That would be the case.

Tavern crowds like this were flocking into Sebeom Valley. The Inje town center had to be a madhouse by now, with 'wolf hunters' swarming in from all eight provinces of the land.

"What do we do, San? Right this second—no, it's too late in the day for that. Should I make another run to town tomorrow? Honestly it'll be hell, but..."

Han San shook his head.

"No."

Counting the travel time and the rate prices were climbing, it was a ludicrous bad move—it amounted to handing every coin earned at the tavern straight over to the town center.

"But it'll just keep getting pricier. The sooner I get back and bring in goods, even a day earlier..."

"Forget it. I've no plans to bring in more goods."

Kim Tae-yang was startled by Han San's flat words.

"No, hey! Then once everything we brought in this time runs out, how are you gonna keep the business going after that..."

As he spoke, Kim Tae-yang looked around the tavern.

Seats packed full of customers, liquor and food going out without a moment's rest. Surely they had to keep this flow going? And to do that, you had to keep bringing in goods.

But Han San silently scanned the tavern. His eyes were dry, nothing like the money-greedy gleam in Kim Tae-yang's.

'This business isn't meant to last long anyway.'

You have to think it through carefully.

This whole [feast] had raised its curtain on the windfall of the Ginsei bounty in the first place.

Put the other way around, the moment someone catches Ginsei and claims the bounty, the feast ends and everyone goes home.

'A business you start by riding the moment has to read the moment to bow out, too.'

What was more—

'There'll be hyenas swarming in once they catch the scent.'

Han San judged it coldly.

'Ten days is plenty.'

Get greedy and try to milk it longer, and he'd end up coughing back even the money he'd already made.

"Don't worry."

Han San gave a faint smile and clapped Kim Tae-yang on the shoulder.

"Your hyung's got it all figured out."

Time passed.

The tavern was packed to capacity day after day.

Ham Ssang-sim's gukbap had already become the talk of the area, and the rich provisions arriving by ox cart from town gave that reputation wings. As word also spread of Han Man-seok's skill at servicing equipment, Sebeom Valley was, before anyone realized it, becoming a forward base for wolf hunting.

Han San raked in money amid all of it, keeping his ears thrown wide open.

"They say a trap got smashed to pieces over by Baekdam Valley yesterday. The tracks were the size of some kid's head, supposedly."

"Those military police bastards!! Went up today and they've blocked off the path to Dalma Peak completely!!"

"You know that Kim fellow who drank with us here a while back? That arm they found at Ssangcheon a couple days ago—looks an awful lot like his..."

Within the rowdy chatter of the low-rank hunters, Han San focused on two things in particular.

Where the military police's encircling net was moving.

How Ginsei and the wolf pack he led were moving.

'Not yet.'

Han San marked red dots on the situation board in his head and waited for the moment.

Of course, there was a limit to what he could do alone.

For all that he'd lived his whole life in Seorak and his memory had sharpened through his return, working from secondhand accounts alone inevitably left gaps.

'It's fine.'

Luckily, he wasn't alone now.

"Father."

Once the tavern closed for the day, Han San sat down face to face with his father.

"If the wolf pack were skirting around the Ssangcheon side and Dalma Peak were blocked off, how would they move?"

Han Man-seok answered at once.

"Then they'd turn and head off in an entirely different direction. Is there a waterway running down below there?"

"There are two waterfalls."

"In that case they'd spend the night at whichever is closer. Come daybreak, they'd climb up along the ridge."

Through all those daily exchanges, Han Man-seok never once asked why his son wanted to know such things. He only answered.

There were times he posed a few questions of his own, but they were about the terrain of Seorak.

"This place called Cheonbuldong Valley is a bit unfamiliar to me. What sort of place is it?"

This couldn't be helped.

Han Man-seok had lived nearly fifteen years in Sebeom Valley with his family, but his leg was bad. Han San, whose legs were spry and who had grown old in Seorak across his past life too, naturally had the better feel for the lay of the land.

'And the terms I use are mixed in with place names from later generations.'

Of course, that was no trouble.

Han San drew a rough map of the terrain with paper and pen.

"It's like this." Once again, the memory that had sharpened through his return played a big role. "The military police's position—today they say it's over here."

"Let's think on it a while."

Han Man-seok folded his arms and ran the problem through his head once.

"Three broad movements seem possible, I'd say. The first of them is..."

Through repeated gathering of information and going back over it, the situation board in Han San's head grew steadily clearer.

Kim Tae-yang, who knew none of this, fretted alone.

"San! There's hardly any of the pork bones we brought in left—what do we do..."

'Not yet.'

"San. The millet and potatoes are bottomed out too. Even now, I could go to town..."

'Not yet.'

"Hey! The liquor, really—think about the travel time! I'll take the uncles to town tonight, even, yeah?"

'Not yet.'

Funnily enough, it was Ham Ssang-sim and Han Man-seok and Han San—the family actually running the tavern—who stayed calm, while Kim Tae-yang stamped his feet with an anxious face nearly every day.

And Han San would not budge.

"Forget it. I told you, we don't need it."

"No... haa, San! Just tell me the reason at least. The money's piled up like crazy, hasn't it?! Use that money to bring in more goods, sell more, turn it into more money, then use that money to bring in even more goods! No matter how high the town's prices climb, the profit climbs right along with it, so just keep rolling it like a snowball..."

It was about a week after the goods had come in that Kim Tae-yang said this, practically pleading.

The evening of April 30, 1933.

It was also the moment the 'signal' Han San had been waiting for finally came.

"All hands, halt!"

Kwang!

The tavern gate was kicked roughly open.

At the same time—stomp, stomp!—the tread of military boots rang out across the dirt yard as one.

"Silence! On your feet! Receive the Empire's military police!"

The customers eating gukbap. Ham Ssang-sim, frying the mugwort pancakes[1] she'd newly started in the kitchen. Han Man-seok, servicing a shabby matchlock gun. Im Baechil, splitting firewood behind the tavern. Kim Tae-yang, pleading with Han San.

All of them stopped what they were doing and fell silent.

Only Han San set the dishes in his hands down on the wooden bench beside him, walked over, and stood.

"Welcome, gentlemen."

The military police standing in rows gave no response to Han San's words. That was not their job.

They merely split to the left and right.

From within the military police, parted like the Red Sea, a single man walked out, step by heavy step.

A gray-haired man with a patch over his left eye. In his hand, krrk!—the sound of two walnuts grinding sparks against each other.

The Inje military police detachment commander.

The viper, Sawada Kazuo.

"You the master of this place?"

Han San met that cold single eye squarely and answered with all due courtesy.

"Yes, I'm the master here."

[1] Mugwort pancake (쑥전, ssukjeon) is a traditional Korean savory pancake made by pan-frying young mugwort greens in a flour-and-egg batter, eaten especially in spring.

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