Again a sheep was seen on the cliffs, it was black and blended into the mountain, Runki said it was at a dead end, but some disputed this, without further debate, without a long-winded deliberation which would never lead anywhere, he tore away from the place again with Jasmine but stopped before he got too close, vanished down somewhere with her, prowling about with his bitch, peeking here and there, then he pulled the rifle off his back and aimed it, took aim and shot, the crack rushed onto the mountain and up the glacier and ran in a big circle around the mountain hall, I followed the sound with my eyes, turning around in a ring, and then we saw the lamb falling down the cliff to the rockbed where its carcass remained. Now the air became thick, and nothing peeked out from the mountains, I felt the spirit of the mountains, alive and ghostly, the dogs slow and tangled about our feet, fearful-eyed, as though death was awaiting us up ahead; a cold shiver chilled through me, we flocked single file over the loose stones, if your foot slipped it was a long fall down. The mountain fog gave us an advantage over the helicopter that was on the way. Why do we risk ourselves for some lamb or other? I asked myself, we considered ourselves a rescue operation, we must save sheep from the mountain, from outdoors, from the inclement, bring them under human control, within the law, but this was no rescue operation, it was more like a hunting trip, a military raid, any sheep approaching civilization from these free mountain ranges would be slaughtered, the rest shot from a distance. Nobody is allowed to eat the creatures, I have to make sure that State laws are enforced, that all the carcasses are disposed of in the trash incinerator that heats Flosalaug; such is the fate of the most singular and wild livestock in the world.
Sheep should simply be wild, I thought under the cliff, Dr. Lassi wrote in the report, I should be sitting at home with my wife and not taking part in this foolhardiness, drinking coffee and reading The Settlement in Skaftafell District instead of toiling away here in precipitous scree moseying about with this cumbersome pole I have no idea how to use, on this deathly stony mountain ridge, this Hafrafell with its evil Illukletta and mystical X … in reality, farming should be banned, I thought as soon as I looked at the weeping, cracking glacier, we were now far inside the wasteland at the root of the glacier, the Öræfings slid down the scree with poles under armpits, using them as a third leg, going fast but gently, bumping over large rocks and floating a dozen meters at a time down the steep slopes as though they were mountain goats. I felt heavy, cumbersome, a layabout. The sheep should be free, I thought, looking out at the cracking glacier, we should ban farming and sheep rearing and get rid of the horfellislögin, the laws against wild animals starving, we should instead let sheep take care of themselves, we should stop interfering in everything, if it dies it dies, if it lives it lives, the wild sheep here are a chosen few, this wild sheep is elite, the gods selected the sheep to turn away from man and starvation laws and búfjárlögin and the State as a whole, the circle of compensation, they should be remunerated with life not death, the wild sheep have nowhere to be, people fervently seek to eliminate anything free in this country, to exterminate a whole species, and so all farming as we know it should be shut down, government subsidies for industrial farming, it’s no longer right, I thought there under the rocks as I looked about the creeping glacier, Dr. Lassi wrote, the whole country taken over by meadows to produce dry fodder for creatures who are going to be slaughtered; before 1362, cereal was grown in the Province for humans to eat, and today only to fatten animals for death. Sheep are intelligent creatures, not idiotic as people always say; if a sheep doesn’t want to go home, if it chooses to be out in winter, to forsake, that is, the conditions and behavior it encounters on the farm, then the sheep has will, has chosen for itself, the sheep’s shyness stems from experience, what’s shyness but an acquaintance with man? Humans use this stupid starvation law as an excuse, we’ve become ironically conditioned to tormenting animals, wanting to shoot sheep in the name of animal welfare and humanity, to run them off the rocks because farmers didn’t get to inject poisons or toxins in them and give them trash to eat at home in the extermination camps, a.k.a. farms, what’s a farmer but a torture guard, an executioner of animals? I grew up in the countryside, my parents were farmers, and I have gone to all the farms in the whole South of Iceland, my parents were tormentors of animals but they were simply performing their duty, they were not evil by nature, just low-minded and with bad taste, my parents were Eichmannic animal torturers for the State and I am an animal torturer for the State, whole generations are stuck in this torture mire, extermination is our ever-present guiding light, always the only solution, under our own shadow of uncertainty we extinguished our pork stocks, we practically extinguished the Icelandic dog, which was saved by a foreigner, quite frankly, we extinguished our goat stocks, chicken stocks and there’s more we might tally up, we want to eliminate the foxes and the mink, the vegetation, we really actually want to eliminate the country, ourselves, we’re ashamed even though we act like we don’t know shame … Icelanders are a mixed-up nation of hunters, Dr. Lassi writes, greedy, scared, and short-sighted, we should protect wildlife by leaving it alone, instead of constantly competing to destroy them, there’s clearly something wrong with us, the wild sheep brings some vice in our character to the surface, something we do not want to face up to, some old black shadow in our soul, the wild sheep is our subconscious, I thought under the cliffs as I looked out on the creeping glacier, Dr. Lassi wrote in the report, because we want to eradicate this darkness, although it’s never really possible.
I looked up from these musings of mine, sluggish and gloomy, and noticed that they had managed to corner the wild sheep and tie a rope around its horns and neck, they were in full swing trying to get her down from the glacier, Dr. Lassi writes. Then I saw old Muggur from Bölti walking along the mountain ridge with a damn ram on his shoulders, looking like nothing less than a giant troll with broad chest, the Tvísker brothers had gone high up on the slopes to pick grasses and write in notebooks, to look through their binoculars and gather samples. Kiddi came upon his grandfather on top of the glacier, and his bitch lying there, giving birth in the snow, he took each puppy and placed them in his lunchbox, packing them together well and propping them up with soft bread, then he set the lunch box back in his pack and continued walking. They were chatting together when Runki came running down the mountain slope with a large collection of wild sheep, nobody could be in the way or it would frighten the sheep; we scattered in all directions. Runki was making all kinds of gestures with his whole body, giving coded signals we mustn’t frighten the sheep, it shouldn’t have been possible to drive a herd of wild sheep ahead of a man, according to theory, but he repeatedly commanded his bitch Jasmine with his pole first right then left now up and out and she rushed to and fro, working hard to hold the sheep together, I cried out and ran to help, so did some others in the area, we arranged ourselves so that the sheep couldn’t escape onto the glacier, into Illukletta, they were so frenzied in their shy anger that it was mesmerizing to see, the group swept forward like starlings at sunset over the Paris skyline, I had to hit myself on my thigh to avoid getting stuck in a trance and staring like a troll at a clear sky; I was ready, I had taken up a stance like a goalkeeper …The sheep tore toward the Tvísker brothers who rose and swung their poles and shouted and called, quiet and gentle, they are mild men, it is not in their nature to scream, Runki drove the sheep with great intensity and speed down the scree …The Regular clearly had no idea what was going on and stood there in the middle of the heath, with Runki yelling: Get away! Get away! …Then The Regular ran toward the sheep, and they scattered in all directions, smashing through all our defenses and escaping out into the wide expanse. Runki and The Regular came together. What the hell are you doing, boy! Runki hurled invectives at The Regular, who stood there gasping and puffing and leaning over his pole, the both watched the sheep disappearing hither and thither, rushing up gullies and ravines, up slopes, out onto the glacier … I’m protecting nature, said The Regular
. I ought to thrash you, Runki said, lifting his pole, but The Regular sped away from his swipe like a mink and set off down the hill, Jasmine staring and looking at her master, bewildered, as his eyes narrowed with dark rage.
I’m olly olly oxen free, The Regular mournfully said to me shortly afterward, Dr. Lassi wrote, I don’t stand a chance against these warriors, and you know what, those old men are spryer than me, I was assigned a spot further down the scree near a promontory some way further from the summit and had to stand in the way there, and seeing that no sheep had come from the promontory and escaped past me back up ono the mountain, there was no chance any of the sheep were on the promontory; I was delighted with my role, said The Regular, I sat down on a rock and had some coffee and some cake, from there I had a great view of the sand and the mountains and the glacier, I rather regretted not having Worm Serpent with me so we could shorten the time by talking poetics or composing rhymes, he was further down, he’s quite bad at hiking, a wretch, really, I took a sip here and there, let my mind roam the cliffs, now and then felt a spell of dizziness so had to roll onto my belly and clutch the moss tight, and then I got bored and decided to find out whether I couldn’t better amuse myself on the killing trip.
Kiddi was positioned a long way into the cliff belt, chasing a wild ram, Kiddi saw that he was heading for a tight corner or would get thrown off the cliff bridge and splattered down on the cliffs; he ran as far as he could onto a very narrow ledge near a precipitous landslide and glided hundreds of yards down, Kiddi saw where the ram went below him single-file around a corner, heavy but agile, when he came around the corner there was no ram there and no egress and he thought it must have fallen down, then as he stood there Kiddi became of the wild ram which had raised itself up on hind legs and now hissed and smacked its tongue, startling Kiddi, the ram took to its feet and drove him back, almost off the cliff, butting his side so that Kiddi’s foot slipped off the ledge and floundered on the loose gravel; Kiddi took off his rope and threw a snare around the horns and pulled hard, he fastened the pole to it, the ram stormed away from the place and dragged Kiddi on his stomach across the rocks, Kiddi flung himself to his feet and ran past the ram and led him by the reins from the impasse back to the heath.
The Regular and I stood and watched and thought, amazed, Dr. Lassi writes. No one goes to herd the wild sheep like when the lazy sheep are rounded-up from the mountains ready for slaughter, as Runki had tried to, blaming The Regular for his failure; the wild sheep must be tamed, said Jakob, one and only one lamb at a time, it requires a lot of skill and comprehension because it runs counter to everything men tend to set store in; the wild herd is frenzied from anger and fights for its life, there is a certain trick to reining it in that, done right, can harness its strength, use the sheep’s strength to direct it down the mountain—not unlike the Japanese martial art aikido, where agile old men treat trolls like empty cardboard boxes, I inferred from Jakob, and nobody was better at this than Jakob from Jökulfell, it was a pleasure to watch him on the slope, he relaxed at just the right moment and flung his rope so that beautiful waves formed along the line, mesmerizing people, then the ewe took to its feet in the direction Jakob indicated and if anyone could have spoken, the only word they’d have been able to use was to mention Jakob’s art.
The weather in the mountains was clearing. I was done pursuing wild sheep; I never meant to take part, just wanted to see this special sheep, analyze it and give it a name. I followed along with the Tvísker brothers, I watched Hálfdán inch forward along a green border on a harsh and stony scree, a hot stream must run there, I could see things growing where Hálfdán was while everything was barren where the others were. And then several things happened at once. Hálfdán looked around, stooping a little, his expression benign, glancing up at the sky, then at his watch, he fished out his barometer, his thermometer, his compass, he stood and thought and looked around, walked a few steps, rolled a stone over and found a beetle which had never before been found in Iceland, a new species. Runki from Destrikt was amazed by Hálfdán’s useless toil and his eccentricity given how all the sheep had scattered, demanding that he must help with the sheep or be left behind or do whatever he damn please! …Yes, of course, Hálfdán murmured, the beetle there in his hand, and set off. I went over to Hálfdán and got to look at the find, the beetle was so small that she could hardly be seen by eyes alone, Runki shouted and tried to herd the men to herd the sheep, everyone seemed rather unaccustomed to such hullaballoo and not best pleased but then the men heard the helicopter approaching, flying low along the glacier’s foot and curving toward the hills, her whistling and clapping sound reverberating everywhere in the mountains, the National Coast Guard helicopter flew up the mountain to us and the members of the police Viking Division started shooting at the wild sheep from the helicopter, we all dived for cover behind the rocks and couldn’t do anything except watch the events with shocked surprise, the State was now involved in the matter, the State, which was opposed to wild animals, so the Minister of the Environment had asked the Attorney General to send the Viking Division with the Coast Guard helicopter to destroy the livestock on humanitarian grounds, in the name of animal welfare, per the statutory duty the State has to maintain the Icelandic biosphere and follow animal welfare laws, starvation laws, laws about preventing sheep disease; a lot of bloodshed followed, and it was ugly to behold; the marksmen of the Viking Division were quick to shoot all the animals that had been gathered in one area thanks to the diligence and drive of Runki from Destrikt and many other zealous lads and old men, but now we were a ways away, no longer able to do anything. This went on for a while. The helicopter flew big circles, ferreting out the flock with its thunderous noise; some of the sheep fell from cliffs and broke apart on the glacier; others died from breathlessness. Kiddi saw a ram up on the mountain and immediately sprang after him, wanting to get ahead of the helicopter and capture him alive, desperate to save the wild sheep from both State and Reality; it was the last wild ram, and Kiddi knew Runki had a ewe lamb inside his sweater, it was a predetermined plan, Kiddi kicked hard across the gravel bed and tussocks and scrambled up the mountain slope and jumped over the gully, leaping onward with his pole; Runki sent Jasmine after him to help, and together they cornered the ram which was fat and lumbering while Kiddi and Jasmine were both tremendously sprightly. It was the most arresting thing, a beautiful sight, we stood and watched through binoculars, which seemed to me the most sensible and thoughtful and, most of all, the best view, Dr. Lassi writes, according to Hálfdán, the ram had variously colored body and legs, with a white line from his nose up its snout, ending with a star on his forehead; his neck was gray back to his sides and to the upper thighs, but he had moorit socks, gray-flecked, he held his head high, his fiery eyes a bright white on his big, long-necked head, that exactly was the appearance of the last wild ram, he was grumpy and wary, proud, erect, and stern; everyone agreed they had never set eyes on so beautiful a creature. This was something other than a white, lazy normal sheep, wool dangling, dragging behind it, Dr. Lassi wrote in the report. The helicopter pilot had caught sight of him, Jasmine crept and shifted around the mottled ram, Kiddi lassoed up the hillside in the meantime and came face to face with Hosi the ram who stood and looked at Kiddi with threatening eyes, frozen there, Hosi had Kiddi in his sights and meant to butt this lout to death, Hosi stamped down his foot, knocking the stones from under him, Kiddi lowered his pole and placed it in his armpit and rushed down the gravel terribly fast, it seemed like a triplet of Kiddis were there but the helicopter swung up the valley to meet them and the members of the Viking Division loaded their rifles, Hosi stood still, not budging, Kiddi stepped hard on the ground, preparing his feet for flight and he indeed leapt high and far, a somersault finishing with a half-screw to land beside the ram, Jasmine jumped away in terror but Kiddi seized Hosi by the antlers, wrapped the rope around one hand, bound the ram’s horns, and then ran then back down the scree …The helicopter swung over them like a wasp and th
en headed down the mountain and disappeared past the cliff, we thought they were done, the noise was dying off, silence returned to the mountains’ kingdom. Kiddi came triumphantly down the slopes, leading Hosi behind him, sometimes stumbling on the way back to us, Hosi reluctant on the line, lumbering in his wake, finally Kiddi had to use all his strength to drag Hosi to us, the large and great and final wild sheep. The little ewe lamb in Runk’s windbreaker peeked out silent and half-fearful from the neck hole. When Kiddi finally reached us with the ram, gasping and stumbling, he could see from our expressions that all was not right: looking back, he saw that Hosi was dead.
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