Hunting Game

by Helene Tursten

  No, now you have to get up! she urged herself. If she lay there any longer there was a major risk that she would fall back asleep. Listlessly she started stretching in her lovely cocoon, when she suddenly stopped. What was that? She listened tensely to try to make out the sound again. There. It was definitely a scream. And another. It sounded like a woman. Karin! She wriggled herself free from the sleeping bag and leaped out of bed. In her haste she struck her head on the top bunk but barely noticed it. The room was completely dark but she knew where on the wall the hooks she had hung her clothes on were. At a furious speed she got dressed. She slept in her long underwear and socks, so it was just a matter of pulling on her sweater and jumping into the pants.

  At the front door Nisse was already stepping into his boots. Without exchanging a word with him she pulled on her boots and rushed out into the rain, wriggling into her jacket. While doing that she managed to fish out the flashlight that was in the pocket. For a fraction of a second she stopped to turn it on and try to establish where the scream had come from. The outhouse. Definitely the outhouse. She aimed the beam of light toward the almost-invisible path and ran as fast as she could. Ahead of her she saw Björn. He hadn’t had time to put on his jacket and was running in just a flannel shirt that was sticking damply to his back.

  The beams of the flashlights showed where Karin was leaning against the door, sobbing loudly.

  “Karin! What is it?” Björn ran up and threw his arms around her.

  At first she couldn’t answer but when he carefully tried to move her from the door she got a wild look in her eyes and resisted with all her strength. “No, don’t open it!” she screamed.

  “Why not?”

  “A snake . . . it bit me!”

  “A snake?” Embla and Björn echoed.

  Behind them steps from the others were heard approaching.

  When he recovered from the initial surprise Björn asked, “Where did it bite you?”

  “Here . . . on my hand. I was going to get toilet paper . . . it was by the roll.”

  She held out her right hand. In the sharp light from the flashlights two distinct red dots were visible right below her little finger. The bite was deep, and it was clear she needed to see a doctor.

  “There’s poor cell phone coverage here. I’ll drive her and contact the health center on the way,” said Björn.

  “I can drive you both in my car if you’d like,” Peter offered.

  “No, thanks. It’s just as well we take the Jeep. You have two cars left here so you can get home. It’s best that you continue the hunt. I’ll be in touch.”

  He put his arm around Karin to support her. In silence the others in the hunting party watched as the light from their flashlights got weaker and weaker as Karin and Björn headed back toward the cabins.

  “And what do we do with the snake?” Tobias said in the darkness.

  “I have a spade in the car,” his father said sternly.

  “Vipers are protected,” Peter added carefully.

  “Not here,” Einar cut him short.

  They cracked open the door of the outhouse and the flashlights lit up the small space.

  The black snake was coiled up on the stool, above the pile of magazines. Its head was raised a few centimeters and its tongue played out and in. Its movements were slow because of the cold, but it did not look amiably inclined. It hissed at them through its open jaws.

  “A female. They’re bigger than the males. And the rump is rounder,” Sixten informed them.

  “So it’s not a grass snake?” Peter asked.

  “No, it doesn’t have spots on the side of its head. Although they don’t always have those.”

  With long steps, Einar came walking through the rain. In one hand he was holding the spade. Without further ado he opened the door completely, raised the spade, and chopped down with the sharp edge against the snake. There was such force in the blow that the creature’s head bounced away and landed right by the door, and the first few magazines in the pile were split down the middle.

  They helped to get Karin’s and Björn’s things in the car; it was unclear whether they would be able to come back up for the weekend. While they were packing up, the swelling on Karin’s hand and fingers had increased. It hurt, she admitted, but she seemed to have recovered from the initial shock.

  Being bitten by a viper in the middle of October was unusual; no one in the hunting party had heard of any other cases this late in the season. Snakes usually get sluggish and are dormant when the temperature drops toward freezing. This specimen had seemed rather active. And how in the world did it get in? Embla wondered.

  Almost twenty years ago Nisse had put heavy metal sheets wherever mice might try to make their way into the cabin, and he had done the same with the outhouse. The sheets were impossible for rats and mice to get through, and they hadn’t had any problems with rodents since then. The only possibility was that the snake had slithered down into the latrine pit and come up by way of the lavatory opening. But that explanation wasn’t likely because no trace of carbolic lime could be seen on the headless body. Besides, a heavy wooden lid covered the hole, and the snake hardly could have moved it and certainly couldn’t have closed it again.

  At ten o’clock a text message came from Björn, who wrote to say the doctor at the community health center had given Karin a shot of cortisone. She was up-to-date on her tetanus shot because she worked in healthcare. Now she had been given strict orders to take it easy for a few days. For the moment, Björn said, he had lost the desire to hunt, but maybe he would drive up to the cabin on Saturday.

  Threatening clouds rolled across the sky all morning and when it was time for group grilling it started to rain.

  Most of the hunters stood by the fire, waiting for sausage. As Peter walked by, Sixten raised his voice and said, “A sick dog and a hunter bitten by a snake. That has never happened before. Remember what I said about thirteen at the table!”

  Peter ignored him and went up to Embla, who had just set her rifle down against a tree. He nodded toward the rifle. “Doesn’t that have a pretty strong recoil?” he asked.

  She could have informed him that she was probably the one in the hunting party who could best handle recoil, given her training on guns and the strong musculature in her neck and shoulders, but she didn’t.

  “Yeah, but you acquire the technique. Although to start with, I had a lighter rifle that’s suitable for a moving hunt. The recoil is considerably less,” she answered instead.

  “Because I’m such a greenhorn I really feel the shock. But I guess you learn.”

  “You do,” she said, smiling encouragingly.

  “Okay. Can you show me how to position the butt so I don’t feel it as much?” After a moment, Peter blushed at the innuendo.

  “Sure,” Embla said with a smile.

  She picked up his new Blaser R8 caliber 9.3x62 and felt its weight. It was an excellent all-around gun, but she could understand why he had problems with the rifle’s strong recoil. They moved a short distance away from their hunting comrades at the grill and stood with their backs to them. In front of them were only spruce trees and brush. He took a sight out of his jacket pocket and mounted it on the rifle. It was a smaller Zeiss. She used a similar one herself when she didn’t need her red-dot sight.

  “Show me how you hold the gun when you aim,” she said.

  He got into shooting position. They were standing very close to each other, so she could study his profile without it seeming intrusive. Straight nose, blue eyes that were shadowed by dense, light eyelashes. Peter was good-looking. Really good-looking.

  She adjusted the location of the butt plate and raised it somewhat. “There. Feel it properly. That’s the best position to resist the recoil,” she said.

  “Like this?”

  “Yep.” She watched as he got a feel for the position.

  “And here you are, necking!”

  The voice behind them made them both jump. Peter turned around, still wi
th the rifle in shooting position. It happened to be aimed at a point right above the bridge of Tobias’s nose. His eyes widened and the smile on his lips disappeared. Embla threw herself against the barrel and took hold of it with both hands. With all her strength she aimed it down toward the ground.

  “Never do that again, damn it!” she roared.

  With flushed cheeks she yanked the rifle from his hands and for a moment it looked as if she intended to throw it into the bushes, but she stopped herself and without a word she threw the sporting rifle back to its owner. Luckily Peter managed to catch the gun. The two men stood crestfallen and watched her straight back as she marched off, seething with anger. Both were unsure which of them she was most angry at.

  The truth was she didn’t know herself. She was literally shaking with fury. It was so idiotic of Tobias to surprise a person who was standing in shooting position and completely dangerous of Peter to react the way he did. Never aiming your gun at a person was an absolute rule in all hunting.

  But it was not the anger that confused her. It was the fear. For when Peter had spun around, she happened to see his gaze. The expression in his friendly blue eyes changed in a flash from normal concentration to the sharpness of polished sapphires. She had seen that look many times in hunters in the fraction of a second before they fired.

  If the gun had been loaded Tobias could have been dead now.

  Embla was not really hungry anymore, but she knew she needed to get something in her stomach before the afternoon post. She made her way toward the grill to get a sausage.

  It didn’t seem as if the others had noticed what happened.

  The manager, Stig Ekström, was standing beside her. Looking for a distraction, she asked, “How’s Frippe? Is he very sick?”

  “Yes. He’s in the hospital with a drip.”

  “Yikes! What’s wrong with him?”

  “Ate something. Presumably rat poison. A large quantity. Luckily, what a rat dies from isn’t enough to kill a dog.”

  “But we don’t use rat poison. The cabin is insulated,” she said.

  “There are other buildings that aren’t,” Ekström muttered. He glared in Sixten’s direction.

  “Do you know for sure that Sixten uses rat poison?” she asked quietly.

  “He did three years ago anyway. He asked to borrow some and I gave him a carton. And he has certainly set out more since then. He hasn’t insulated since it’s not his cabin.”

  “Maybe Frippe found rat poison around the Hunting Castle.”

  “No. We don’t use it anymore. I’ve also insulated the shack and it works fine. That’s why I gave Sixten the carton.”

  Embla was silent a while before she said, “But how could Frippe get into rat poison over here by us? He wasn’t around yesterday, was he?”

  “Frippe may have found a bigger animal that consumed a sizeable dose and died. Dogs do like carrion.”

  “True. They can be pretty disgusting.”

  With a shiver she remembered a death that she and her colleague had been called to when she was working in a patrol car in central Gothenburg. Her colleague’s name was Andreas and back then they worked in the third district. The neighbors had called and complained about a stench from an apartment. It was high summer and they smelled the corpse as soon as they entered the stairwell. When they got up to the apartment they heard muffled growling from the other side of the door. It sounded like a big dog. The locksmith came and picked the lock while she and Andreas cocked their pistols and got into ready position. The locksmith asked to leave before they opened the door. He didn’t want to see what was inside, neither corpse nor dog. When Andreas counted to three he pulled open the door. The fetid stench struck them immediately, but no dog came.

  They carefully stepped in and closed the door. It was a typical addict’s den with mattresses, syringes, empty plastic bags, and all kinds of trash on the floor. The apartment consisted of one room and a kitchen. The door to the bathroom was wide open. Inside the light was on and they saw the dead man lying on the floor. And there was the dog, too: a mixed breed with a lot of Rottweiler. It had survived by drinking water out of the toilet and eating parts of his dead master. The man’s entire face was gone.

  The dog collapsed beside the corpse, set its head between its paws, and looked at them. As they approached the bathroom it raised its head but didn’t growl. Embla met the animal’s gaze. Without hesitating she aimed between the eyes and fired.

  “What the hell! Why did you shoot the dog?” Andreas screamed.

  “Because it asked me to,” she answered.

  The next day Andreas asked to change assignments; he wanted a new partner in the patrol car.

  The scene in the bathroom still haunted her worst nightmares. She had two that constantly recurred. This one wasn’t even the worst.

  “. . . won’t be any more hunting for a while.”

  Suddenly she became aware of Ekström’s voice but had no idea what he was talking about. She mumbled in agreement and hurried to swallow the last bite of sausage. Peter and Tobias were looking in her direction and both were trying to get her attention. Right now they were the last two people she wanted to talk to. With long strides she went over to the tree, picked up her rifle and stomped off into the forest.

  The rain continued to pour. It felt a little dreary sitting up in the tower, peering out over the rainy, gray forest landscape, but the weather didn’t concern her that much. She had hunted in worse conditions. Her anger had started to dissipate, albeit slowly. Damn Tobias! And damn Peter, too! Peter, yes. Maybe his behavior could be explained by the fact that he lacked experience, but that was not an acceptable excuse. He had recently taken the hunting test and should have the safety rules fresh in his mind. How could he have been so careless as to break the most important rule?

  A barely audible cracking sound made her return to the damp reality in the hunting tower. She stayed stock-still and listened. The sound came from a dense thicket of tall junipers. Carefully, so her clothing wouldn’t rustle, she turned herself and the rifle in the direction the sound came from. She supported the rifle against the frame of the tower and twisted the telescopic sight to the largest magnification. At first she didn’t see anything, but after a few seconds something moved behind the bushes and a stately bull moose stepped forward. The dewlap was unusually large and its body seemed colossal. In the sight she could see the raindrops on the animal’s dense coat. She had never seen such a fine bull. Her mouth got dry and the familiar feeling of cold spread in her body. Stay calm, you’ve done this many times before, she reminded herself. With her right thumb, she pushed up the safety. Hold back the shot and wait for the perfect angle, she thought.

  The distance was barely thirty meters. The moose took a few steps forward and stopped. It stood with its rear at an angle to her and sniffed the air suspiciously. In that position it was impossible to shoot. Perhaps it sensed that she was in the vicinity. Slowly the moose turned around. When he was standing completely in profile she fired. The shot went straight through the heart and lungs. The heavy body collapsed on the spot.

  Her heart was racing and her whole body felt drained. It took a moment before she could climb down from the tower. She approached her downed prey on shaky legs. Once there she performed something akin to a Native American war dance around the animal’s body. She had robbed von Beehn of the sixteen-pointer!

  The hunting party had shot seven adult moose and eight calves. Embla’s bull was hands down the finest animal. The bull weighed almost exactly 650 kilos and was healthy and in its prime. After inspecting the teeth and horns, Einar and Nisse determined the moose’s age to be about twelve years. The horns would get a place of honor over her couch. She had no other hunting trophies on the walls, but this was special.

  Seven adult animals and seven calves remained of the quota. They would probably not get that many, but there would be more opportunities during the fall. Their A license allowed them to hunt for seventy days. There was plenty of time to sh
oot the remaining moose.

  During the evening the mood around the dinner table was rather subdued, despite the sixteen-pointer. Tobias whispered to Embla that Peter had apologized to him, but she noted that they still avoided sitting close to each other at the table.

  It was horrible that Karin had been bitten by a snake. Everyone had a hard time letting go of the question of how the snake managed to get into the outhouse. They discussed the mystery but did not come to any likely solution. At last it was agreed that it must have slipped in when someone was going in or out of the privy, but Embla didn’t think that sounded credible.

  They decided that an early bedtime was advisable and the party broke up for the evening. Before Embla turned in, she needed to go out and pee. She crouched behind the junipers. Even though all traces of the dead viper had been swept away, the outhouse did not feel as safe as before.

  The following morning was cold and clear. Embla felt the mood rise several degrees. The atmosphere around the breakfast table was markedly lighter.

  It was still dark when she took off toward her station with the flashlight in one hand and the rifle hanging from its strap over her shoulder. Even in the beam of the flashlight, the path was hardly visible, but she knew the way well, as she had been sitting in the same tower the last four hunts.

  As she approached the tower she heard a pitiful whimper, following by a drawn-out howl that ended in a yelp. She stopped and listened. The sound repeated. A fox. And it was scared and sad. Carefully she moved forward with her flashlight. The whine stopped abruptly when the animal perceived her presence, but she could still hear it struggling. Then she saw the awful scene. The fox’s terrified eyes stared right into the light. Around its mouth, foam edged with blood. One hind leg was stuck in a big foot-hold trap, and it looked as if the leg was almost completely severed. Blood surrounded the trap; the fox had tried to bite off its leg to get loose.