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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 57

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Talent from Inje (4)

The conditions Han San demanded of his candidates for private soldiers were clear.

First, comfort with blood.

A bookish sort who balked at the mere smell of blood was no good. Whether it meant slitting a boar's throat or blowing off a bandit's head, the man had to have the guts to keep the county office's heart beating steady.

Second, skill with tools.

This was still an age when cold weapons saw active service. Knife, club, whatever came to hand—he had to be good with one or two of them and at least passable with the rest.

Third, strength.

To race across these rough foothills of Seorak as if they were his own front yard, he needed muscle packed clear down into the joints of his bones.

And on top of that.

'I mustn't forget my own roots.'

His father was a hunter, and so was he.

A mountain man who'd spent his whole life on the slopes.

Until the day the Republic of Korea rose and nature protection laws were enacted, Han San would live by a creed that held everything but himself to be prey.

Up to now he and his father had handled the butchering and dressing of that prey, just the two of them. It was work that called for specialized skill.

But wouldn't it be convenient if a household servant had that skill too?

'So. A butcher.'

There was no breed of man who fit all these conditions as well as the ones who slaughtered cattle and pigs every single day.

'Only, not just any butcher will do.'

Because the most important condition still remained.

'He must not be steeped in superstition.'

Han San had not forgotten his enemy's roots either.

Old Woman Wangdae, who ruled Upper Hamlet, was a great shaman grounded in the old folk faith. Even Han San had nearly been swallowed by that uncanny air when he'd faced her beneath the Seonangdang shrine tree.

A man who wouldn't crumple when that old crone shrieked about ghosts and goblins. A man who wouldn't shrink back when she bellowed that the Mountain Lord Mama was wroth.

No—a man who would snort at it instead. That was exactly the sort of man he needed for an underling.

So only one candidate remained.

'Hyeongpyeongsa.'

In 1923, in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, the child of Yi Hak-chan—a man of means born to the butcher caste—was refused entry to a school.

The scholar-gentry had all changed into Western suits or fallen to playing clowns in hanbok, and yet the discrimination between noble-born and base-born had only grown sharper. Anger at that paradox spread like wildfire across all eight provinces.

[Fairness is the foundation of society!]

[A butcher is a human being too!]

The Joseon Hyeongpyeongsa, launched with a cry for the equality of butchers, grew into a nationwide body within a single year of its founding, setting up twelve branches and sixty-seven sub-branches.

But even the loveliest song picks up noise once a whole crowd joins in.

Ten years on, the Hyeongpyeongsa too had changed color. It had joined hands with Japan's Suiheisha[1] and mingled with other groups, and a swarm of socialist activists had latched on.

And yet.

'All the better, actually.'

In this era, with the Soviet Union just past its tenth birthday.

What was a socialist activist?

'Reds!'

This was before even the slogan "from the cradle to the grave" had been born. What existed were communists with the deep red flavor of the source country still alive in them.

Materialists!

God? Ancestors? The Mountain Lord Mama?

No such thing. What they believed in was matter and class and struggle, nothing more. One dose of Master Marx's red medicine and superstition was cured in a single shot.

'And on top of that, they're contrarians at odds with society.'

The Hyeongpyeongsa was under blanket suppression from every direction now.

'And Sebeom Valley is a place where people flung out of society gathered over a long span of time.'

Sebeom Valley took in everything. That was a deeply cruel thing...

So why not take them in this time as well?

'There's room to grow it.'

Lure one in, and couldn't he drag the other Hyeongpyeongsa men along in a string, like dried fish on a line? Building a [Red Army] in one corner of Sebeom Valley, fully immune to Old Woman Wangdae's exorcism rites—the mere thought made Han San's mouth water...

There was risk, of course.

'If it leaked that men hunted by the government were holed up in Sebeom Valley...'

That viper Sawada would be thrilled. He might even, low as he was, dream up some way to climb the ladder off the back of it.

'And besides... these men are themselves a ticking time bomb.'

People who worshipped an [-ism] were dangerous.

Not that communists were especially dangerous for being communists. Anti-communists were just as dangerous.

People who held some value as absolute would do anything for the sake of the 'great cause' they believed in.

Han San, who had taken Korea's modern and contemporary history full on the body, knew that fact to the marrow.

But.

'It's fine.'

He could control them.

By money, by force, by one means or another.

And if there appeared even the faintest speck of a sign that they were slipping beyond control?

'Then he'd cut them off.'

It was as simple as that.

He'd just toss them to that viper Sawada and let the man earn his promotion. If some other officer came in as a replacement, the whole region might get a moment to breathe.

'A hired hand—or rather, closer to bringing in a band of mercenaries.'

Inviting a group of different origins into his own territory. You could call it a kind of mutual vassal contract.

That candidate contractor, Chuk Hong-cheol, opened his mouth.

Of course, it was nothing like "I ask you. Are you my contractor?"

"You reactionary little bastard."

His first words came on strong.

"A snot-nosed brat, calling me comrade? The only comrade I know is the day you eat red bean porridge! Where'd you hear about me, coming to skulk around here? And what's this about hiring? Your mother's—are you some constable's flunky? Eh?"

Han San didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. It was within the range of what he'd expected.

How steep must the hardships be in the life of a butcher-born Hyeongpyeongsa activist?

And to a man who had lived such a life, how laughable must it look for some young punk who looked barely twenty to come talking as if he knew anything.

So Han San said no more.

He pulled out a pouch he'd tucked away separately. Jingle. A pleasant sound came from it.

"Thirty won."

Jingle, jingle. Shaking the money pouch, Han San said,

"Term: six months, for now."

"What the..."

"Live with us and do some work for me, comrade."

Chuk Hong-cheol's eyes wavered, as if chasing the swaying of the pouch.

Thirty won!

Enough to buy a whole seom of white rice and still have change. Enough to buy half a cow.

But Chuk Hong-cheol snorted.

"Thirty won, your mother's. You reactionary little bastard. You take the chicken feed I'd earn with this big body of mine doing one month of labor out on the new road, and you want—what? Six months? Go catch the plague."

Han San gave a short laugh.

A laborer's daily wage on the new road ran from 60 jeon to 1 won. So you could call it the money he'd earn from just a month of labor.

But that wasn't how you ran the numbers.

"Then go work, if you like. That is, if 'comrade' can find such a job."

Chuk Hong-cheol ground his teeth.

In any age, the powerful are quick to cut off the livelihoods of those who've fallen out of favor. And in this age it went without saying.

And Han San added,

"I live up on that mountain, a place called Sebeom Valley. A slash-and-burn settlers' village. Ever heard of it?"

"...And what if I have?"

"What do you mean, what. I'm asking if it doesn't look better than here. For getting out of the wind and rain.

You can live right next to my place. I'll help you build a house—materials and tools included. I'll feed you too. Six months, thirty won. Eh?"

Han San said it while jingling the pouch one more time.

Chuk Hong-cheol ground his teeth again. Slipping into a slash-and-burn village for a turn of rest while biding time was a familiar thing to activists.

A slash-and-burn village it might be, but a house with walls and a roof, meals included, for six months. And thirty won on top of it.

There was no comparison with hiding in the mountains like a beast and coming down like a thief to scrape by on day labor...

When his thoughts reached that far, Chuk Hong-cheol growled out a shout.

"Hah! You think I, Chuk Hong-cheol, would bow to a tool of the bourgeoisie like that!"

It was a declaration that laid bare his revolutionary spirit, but Han San shot back at once.

"You want equality, don't you? Well, money's the most equal thing there is."

"Bullshit! How is the haves having more any kind of equality!"

"So have some too. You."

Han San tossed the money pouch against Chuk Hong-cheol's chest. "Whoa there!" Chuk Hong-cheol caught it without thinking.

"Money doesn't check the family register of the man who holds it. Butcher, nobleman—whoever holds it just holds it.

Wasn't your group's own founder a rich man? The problem wasn't the haves having more. Wasn't what stung you the fact that they picked at why the likes of you would dare to have anything at all?"

"Y-you..."

Chuk Hong-cheol gnashed his teeth. He wanted to argue back, but sadly, the late-blooming activist was outmatched in the war of words.

It wasn't as if Han San had a silver tongue either—or rather, he had no intention of holding some grand debate over ideology. Leave that sort of thing to Teacher Han Bada of his past life. A common man like himself could fry and stew with words all he liked and never solve a single thing.

Knowing that, Han San acted.

"What'll it be? Don't want it, then forget it. There's no end of folks who'll take this money and work for me. Snap!"

Whoosh. The sound of cutting air, and then Chuk Hong-cheol realized that the money pouch he'd been cradling against his chest had somehow been snatched back into the hand of this young reactionary bastard.

A chill crawled up his spine.

'Revolutionary speed...'

The timing was perfectly chosen, catching him off guard. It startled Chuk Hong-cheol that he—a man who'd rolled around plenty in brawls and slit the throats of countless livestock—had failed to react.

A hideout, money, and now this skill with his body. Chuk Hong-cheol no longer made light of the man before him, and lowered his voice.

"What kind of work are you trying to make me do... You're not, well, trying to kill anyone, are you."

"If someone needs killing, I might kill them."

Han San said it plainly, hiding nothing.

'This kind of thing has to be said up front.'

That nonsense later on about how [this isn't what I thought it was]—Han San really, truly did not want to hear it...

Naturally Chuk Hong-cheol sucked in a sharp breath.

"What!? No, murder is..."

"Don't lose your head. It's just a general principle—that someone who needs killing might get killed in a situation that calls for it."

"Someone who needs killing...?"

"Like bandits and such. There are times when it's kill or be killed, you know."

Chuk Hong-cheol drew his thick eyebrows together as if trying to grasp what he really meant, and only after a little while did he ask,

"...You're saying you won't be the one to drag me out doing bandit work first, then?"

Han San nodded. Boldly.

Chuk Hong-cheol seemed to weigh the words once more, but soon shook his head.

Come to think of it, there was no need to use his head. If this young reactionary bastard deceived him and pulled him into murder and robbery, then so what—he'd just do the murder and robbery.

Only, with the victim being not some bystander but this young reactionary bastard's neck.

If the other man 'betrayed' him, he'd just 'revolt.'

And if he wasn't deceived, well—six months... that much he could manage.

His thinking done, Chuk Hong-cheol opened his mouth.

"I have a condition."

Han San grinned.

"Let's hear it, comrade."

"First off, stop calling me comrade. It's damn unpleasant..."

"Then what do I call you. Mister?"

"Mister, you f... ...Ah, forget it. Just call me whatever you want! And—the thing—like I said, no murder and robbery and such, and aside from that, the, whatchamacallit, no reactionary deeds either!"

Han San didn't ask what exactly counted as a reactionary deed.

In the end, what the man wanted to say was 'know your limits.'

"Taken. And a condition from me too."

Han San looked Chuk Hong-cheol straight in the eye.

"As long as it's not a reactionary deed, do as you're told."

Chuk Hong-cheol met Han San's gaze with heavy eyes.

Chuk Hong-cheol, for his part, didn't ask what exactly "not a reactionary deed" was supposed to mean. This too would boil down to 'know your limits.'

Han San—and Chuk Hong-cheol no less—were not poor at reading the room. Between men like that, no more words were needed.

Trust?

In a sense.

Only, it was not some grand and beautiful trust.

The seventy-four-year-old knew, of course, that unconditional trust existed in this world. The very thing he held for his family, and the thing his family held for him, was exactly that.

To put it another way, toward anyone who wasn't family he held no such trust to begin with.

'In the end, being bound by mutual interest is the firmest bond.'

Loyalty bought with money is often laughed at. But it lasts as long as you keep paying for it, doesn't it.

"Here."

Han San handed over the money pouch. Chuk Hong-cheol took it.

"Contract concluded." Han San turned around. "Let's go, comrade mister. I'll show you my place."

Chuk Hong-cheol stowed the pouch away as if swallowing it whole, then followed after Han San.

On the way back to Sebeom Valley, Han San deliberately cut straight across the mountain.

It was a route too rough to even feel right calling a beast trail. They had to climb sheer cliffs, push through brush, and clamber over one boulder after another.

A wretched path where an ordinary man would have collapsed before a single li, never mind ten.

"Huff, huff, huff..."

But that ragged breathing of Chuk Hong-cheol's came pressed close behind Han San's back.

'He'll do.'

Han San kept moving and glanced back.

Chuk Hong-cheol was soaked as if he'd bathed in his own sweat, but he didn't fall off the pace. Hauling the A-frame carrier Han San had foisted on him, load piled on top, he came after him as doggedly as a wild boar.

The muscle forged from butchering cattle and pigs, the seasoning from dodging constables during his Hyeongpyeongsa days—none of it had gone anywhere, it seemed.

"Let's rest a bit, come on—huff huff! You, reactionary bastard—huff huff!"

Chuk Hong-cheol screamed.

"We're almost there, comrade. Just over that ridge."

"You said that before, you said it before too! That ridge, before too! Just that ridge—"

"This time it's real. Really just that ridge. That very ridge. See it? That ridge, that one there."

"Ah, you—reactionary—ah, you—huff huff...!"

Han San cackled and picked up his pace.

Right up to the moment they reached Sebeom Valley, Han San did not take a single break.

Chuk Hong-cheol never fell behind, all the way to the end—but he had to wonder whether this didn't itself count as a reactionary deed.

[1] The Suiheisha (수평사, 水平社), or "Levelers' Society," was a Japanese movement founded in 1922 to combat discrimination against the burakumin outcaste class; the Korean Hyeongpyeongsa modeled itself on it and the two groups cooperated.

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