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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 56

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Talent from Inje (3)

"Hey, San. Let me give you a piece of advice..."

The youngest son of the gangster household spoke in a voice every bit as earnest as when he'd laid out his case for buying off the kitchen maid.

"A male servant being strong, sure, that's true enough, but the thing is, it cuts both ways, see?"

"..."

"What does strong even mean? It means that if push comes to shove, he could grab a club and flip the dinner table on you.

Like I said before, you're off in town and out hunting every day, leaving the house empty, right? Your father's a Baekdu Mountain hunter, sure, but his leg's bad, isn't it?

So when you and your father are both away, and that strong servant boy starts getting ideas, what do you figure happens?"

Kim Tae-yang's eyes narrowed.

"Your little brother Bada, the kid. And your mother. One child, one woman, home alone, and the second that servant boy looks at them sideways, the place turns into a sea of blood, just like that.

Think about it. What loyalty would scum like that have? Once a male's belly is full and his back is warm, his head fills right up with notions. That's just male nature, I'm telling you."

Kim Tae-yang shuddered, as if recalling some specific case.

"Honestly. The servant boy opens his mouth and it's nothing but 'you bastard, you bastard' at the young master of the house. And the young master's got to call that servant boy 'uncle, uncle.'

Such an unforgivable, heaven-defying dog's act, and here on these eight provinces of mountain and river where the laws binding lord and servant are sacred, no less. Wow, don't you think that's just absurd? Huh?

San, you think so too, right? Right?"

It wandered off in a strange direction toward the end, but for a rich household's good-for-nothing it was a fair bit of insight.

How many servants ever pledged their loyalty crying, 'My lord! I will serve you all my life!'? It was a world where laying hands on the master's goods, or doing harm and fleeing under cover of night, was an everyday occurrence.

You shouldn't go expecting some retainer armed with chivalry and devotion.

'This isn't some Gu Long wuxia novel.'

The seventy-four-year-old man knew all the workings of that kind of world, of course.

But.

"I won't be bringing in just anyone."

Han San said it without a flicker of doubt and fitted a spear to the atlatl.

"You said once a man's belly is full and his back is warm, his head fills with notions, right?"

"Yeah."

"I agree." Han San kept talking toward the far side of the brush. "The way I see it, there are two ways to solve it."

Kim Tae-yang's eyes went round.

"Two ways?"

"The first is to make sure his head never fills with notions."

"How? Starve him, rip out his heated floor?"

"No."

Han San took a step back.

He planted the soles of his feet firmly into the ground. He twisted at the waist. He raised the hand not holding the atlatl, stretched it forward to use as a counterweight, and only then drew back the shoulder of the arm gripping the atlatl.

"By making the first thought in his head be that climbing above his place gets him killed, and the first thought in his head be that following along brings him gain."

Kim Tae-yang let out a dry laugh.

"Man, if that were as easy as it sounds..."

He stopped. Why had Han San just looked at him? And with a face that said, 'it works, though?' Kim Tae-yang couldn't make heads or tails of it...

"...So what's the second way?"

Kim Tae-yang slid past the subject.

At that same instant, Han San — fwap! — released the shoulder he'd drawn back.

Hwirireuk!

The thrown spear swam through the air and — thwack! — buried itself in something beyond the mist, and "Kaeng!" — a single shriek rang out across the mountainside.

Han San answered flatly.

"You pick a man whose head's already full of notions from the start."

"And what's that supposed to mean..."

Han San tucked the atlatl away and gestured. Let's go check first. Kim Tae-yang hesitated, then moved to follow.

A short while later, the two stood where the spear had struck. The whole area was an utter sea of blood.

"Wow, really. That Baekdu Mountain spear throw..."

Kim Tae-yang clicked his tongue in awe. No matter how many times he saw it, the skill was uncanny.

The wildcat's corpse, though, wasn't where it should have been. And off to one side lay the spear, knocked loose.

A trail of blood, too, leading off beyond the mist.

"Grazed it?"

Han San bent his knee and studied the blood smeared on his fingers, then looked off the way the trail led.

"It hit, and hit clean. It won't get far."

"You can tell that much too..."

"Of course I can. Let's go."

Han San brushed himself off, stood, and got ready to track. Kim Tae-yang made a sour face.

"Honestly. Chasing a wounded one is the most annoying part of all..."

"So you're not coming?"

Han San shot Kim Tae-yang a sidelong glance.

That was all, but somehow Kim Tae-yang felt he'd just been told, 'You sure do talk a lot. If only Baechil-hyung hadn't gotten dragged off to the charcoal kiln.'

"Honestly. Who said I wasn't coming! Just saying we'd better get moving!"

This past month, Kim Tae-yang and Im Baechil had gotten along well enough. It was because the leader, Han San, kept the center of gravity steady.

But how could there be no rivalry between young males?

As they walked, Kim Tae-yang kept glancing over and floating little remarks.

"Hey, but, San. No matter how many servants you keep, we're friends, right?"

Han San snorted a laugh.

"Of course. Friends and servants aren't the same thing."

"Right! That's it."

Kim Tae-yang's chest puffed out wide. Han San only watched him the way a seventy-four-year-old man watches the antics of a neighbor's child, and said nothing more.

'It's not as though I never considered you and Baechil-hyung as private-soldier candidates...'

Kim Tae-yang was unreliable in how he handled things, and Im Baechil's temperament wasn't hard enough. Both were fine against beasts but hard pressed against people.

'Not their fault, though.'

What could you do. Kim Tae-yang was only seventeen now, and Im Baechil barely twenty or so.

Han San himself, without seventy-four years of accumulated seasoning and the baptism of Korea's turbulent modern history, wouldn't have been as solid as he was now either.

'There's no telling what they'll become down the road.'

If he had to trust someone with his back this very moment, then over a servant bought with money, it was plainly Im Baechil, and a good few notches down from him, Kim Tae-yang, who was the more dependable. That much trust, at least, he did hold.

Unable to read those thoughts of Han San's, Kim Tae-yang let his eagerness run out ahead of him until he was panting.

"Hey, but, San."

"Hm?"

"So, hoo. Th-that thing you said earlier, about 'a man whose head's already full of notions' — just what kind of fellows are you even talking about?"

Han San snorted a laugh once more.

"I've got some candidates in mind."

That was all he said.

An hour later, the two came back carrying the gutted carcass of the wildcat.

Well, to be precise, Kim Tae-yang carried it alone.

Five hours later, Han San was in the town of Inje.

A light, unburdened figure, alone with nothing but an A-frame carrier on his back. With practiced ease he handed the phellinus mushroom[1] and a snake over to Cheonbo Pharmacy for 25 won, and passed two hides to Daeseong Leather for 2 won more.

He asked while he was at it.

"How's business these days?"

"Same as ever! On account of the bandits, the medicinal herbs that come off the mountain are running a bit scarce. About that much."

"Oh, then you ought to pay me a little more for them."

"Hasn't gotten all that scarce yet."

So said Ma Jong-sung of Cheonbo Pharmacy, and Park Dong-po of Daeseong Leather said this:

"There sure are a lot of bandits lately! You know Misiryeong Pass, up that way?"

"I know it. The road to Sokcho."

The neck-bone of Seorak. Even now, with no tunnel bored through it yet, the shortest passage linking the East Sea and Inje.

"Seems they're swarming over there in particular. The weather's slowly warming up and all, you know. These days it's gotten hard to even see sea fish at the marketplace, I'm telling you!"

The other shops told much the same story.

The bandits had grown in number. Like bugs crawling out once the weather thawed.

As if to bear it out, on the bulletin board beside the police substation he saw a big poster Sawada had put up.

[ Caution: Robber Gangs at Large ]

No bounty had been posted. In truth, a bounty itself was a rare thing.

'Short of Surveyor Hajama getting hit by bandits again or something...'

Of course, Han San didn't wish such misfortune on Surveyor Hajama.

No, really.

The reason could be inferred from the message Han San had received when he stopped by the South Jade Pavilion.

[Han San! Thank you for helping with the survey over by Seonnyeo Falls last week. That is not mere gratitude. It is my understanding of why my elder brother called you the master of the mountain. If there is help you need, leave word for me.]

He'd already worked in step with the man once and earned a single private surveying right.

If something unfortunate happened to Hajama the Second now, then he'd have to run this whole rigmarole all over again from scratch with the Hajama the Third who came next — supposing such a being existed at all, though for some reason Han San couldn't shake the idiotic hunch that one most certainly would — and honestly, that was something he'd rather avoid.

'And Hajama the Second himself happens to be a fairly decent sort.'

Han San set his heart toward generosity.

'Around these parts, the only cultured man who gets my jokes is Hajama, what with that fine university degree of his.'

"You're cooking up something lame again, aren't you?"

"I wasn't thinking anything."

Han San answered glumly as he looked at Kim Mal-ja in front of him.

"More to the point, take this, noona."

With practiced ease he drew a small box from his shirt and held it out. A handmade gift case he'd carved from wood himself and wrapped in beast hide.

Kim Mal-ja opened it and her eyes lit up.

"What's this? Teeth?"

Han San nodded.

"They're the teeth of the wildcat I caught today. Look at the size of them, would you, on a thing that's no more than a mountain cat. Sensational, right?"

"A wildcat? I heard those are hard to catch..."

"Well, I broke a bit of a sweat."

Han San said it with a show of swagger.

"Caught it together with Taeyang... if you want the details, ask the kid when he comes by sometime. He'll be thrilled to tell you all about it."

"Taeyang... seems he's grown up a little lately. He really has."

A complicated look came into Kim Mal-ja's eyes.

Han San, who in his own past life had been through plenty of ups and downs with his own younger brother, didn't interrupt her reflection and slid the topic along.

"Once the hide's all treated, I'll bring it by. Wildcat hide's a bit of a rare thing, isn't it? Can't exactly hand it off to an ordinary leather merchant."

"Right! Yes. Bring it to me. If it's in good condition I'll pay you 10 won on the spot... no, I'll go up to 12 won."

Good. That was 12 won in income lined up just like that.

Han San went one better.

"Why not leave the whole crafting to me, too? A wallet, say, or a muffler. The wildcat's about this big, see? The hide'll come out to about this much. Tell me what's worth making within that, size and all, and I'll dress it myself."

Had Park Dong-po of Daeseong Leather heard it, he'd have clutched his chest and called him a rotten-souled bastard, but what could you do. Free economic activity was all like that.

Kim Mal-ja propped her chin too, an amused look on her face.

"Quite the salesman... mm. A muffler, then... no, it'll be hot soon. Do you happen to know what slippers are? If you can make them, make me a pair. I'll buy them for 20 won, labor included."

Han San nodded.

"Understood. I'll have them ready for next time I come by... and that information I asked you for the week before last — is it done, by any chance?"

"Here."

Kim Mal-ja drew out a sheet of paper.

Then she thought a moment, wrote some Chinese characters at the bottom of it, and handed it over.

Han San's eyes narrowed.

"What you just wrote, gumun-ban... what is this? A secret code?"

"Oh, give it a rest! That's my foot size..."

"Ah."

Right. He'd need that to make the slippers.

The foot size of the South Jade Pavilion's mistress was 9.5 mun. In future units of measure, he learned, that came to about 230mm.

Whether the knowledge was useful, he couldn't say.

"Anyway, so there's someone of that sort here. That's the gist."

Han San carried the conversation forward.

Mal-ja gave a light cough.

"Yeah... but what do you want with those bastards?"

"I've got a use for them."

"Mm. Just don't go poking a hornet's nest for no reason, all right? I can't stand things getting noisy. The military police chief here is a bit too — how should I put it — lecherous? He's the type you'd do well not to give any cause to tangle with."

Han San gave a wry smile. So this was Sawada's reputation.

"Don't worry. There's no chance of it reaching that man's ears."

"All right... see you next time."

"Yes. Take care, noona."

Han San turned. He passed Mrs. Go, who was just stepping in with that languid look in her eyes, and left the South Jade Pavilion.

About forty minutes later, in a back alley of the town of Inje, reached by riding the information he'd just gotten.

In front of the door of a lopsided plank shack, Han San called out in a low voice.

"Anyone in there."

Inside the door it was still. As if no one were there at all.

But Han San paid it no mind and kept talking.

"Comrade."

A flinch made itself felt beyond the door.

"I came knowing you're in there. So come on out."

"..."

"Do you just mean to keep hiding? Was that all your comrades' aspirations ever amounted to in the end?"

"..."

"What you comrades wanted to cut down — that was this rotten world itself, was it not?"

That was the very moment.

Crash, bang!

The quiet behind the door turned noisy in an instant. The sound of something being snatched up in a hurry, too.

Bang!

The door flew open hard.

What appeared from inside was a man with a thick growth of mustache and beard. In the hand he held over Han San was a butcher's knife, its blade ground keen and blue.

"You... what are you, you little reactionary bastard?"

"Pleased to meet you, comrade of the Hyeongpyeongsa."

Han San smiled brightly, as if the butcher's knife flashing right in front of his nose didn't even register.

"Reactionary, what an outrageous thing to say. I'm a comrade who's come to help build a socialist paradise[2] alongside you."

Wait for it, Old Woman Wangdae.

I'll carve you out a red-flavored revolutionary zone in one corner of Sebeom Valley.

[1] Phellinus mushroom (상황버섯) is a hard, woody bracket fungus that grows on mulberry and other trees, long prized in Korean and Chinese folk medicine as a costly tonic and antitumor remedy.

[2] "Socialist paradise"/"comrade" (동지) is the rhetoric of the 1920s–30s leftist movement under colonial rule; the Hyeongpyeongsa, the equality league of the outcaste butcher class, drew close to socialist and communist organizers in this period, which is why Han San approaches its members in that language.

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