The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [36]
Soon the raven was back, and the hare, which had meanwhile managed to forage a little in the marsh grass, hid away in the bivouac. Vatanen watched more attentively.
The raven snatched the meat tin out of the knapsack. Before examining the contents, it stretched up and eyed the surroundings to be sure the coast was clear. Then it thrust its big head into the depths of the tin.
The creature bolted down several gulps of the greasy meat at the bottom and then decided to come up for air.
But its head wouldn’t come out. The raven was snagged.
It panicked. It bounced away from the knapsack, trying to wrench the tin off, but the snare remained obstinately stuck. The bird clawed in vain at the slippery sides of the tin, and the sharp metal edges sheared into its greasy neck.
Vatanen rushed over, but too late. The black looter took wing, making a great racket, the tin still tight on its head. Though it couldn’t see its way, it gained enough height to prevent Vatanen from finishing it off on the spot.
As it went, it cawed its distress inside the tin. The marsh rang with metallic kronkings, muffled but fateful. It flew straight up, like an evil black swan heading right for Tuonela, the Land of the Dead. There was a clatter and rattle in the tin, and behind that the overwrought croaking of the bird.
All sense of direction lost, incapable of a straight trajectory, it was performing aerobatics. Soon it lost height and crashed into the highest treetops at the edge of the forest. The tin rattled against the branches, and the bird tumbled to the ground, only to fly up again, bleeding, to new heights.
Vatanen saw it disappearing across the forest. Nothing but fearful noises reached the campsite, telling of the robber bird’s last journey.
A drizzle of sleet started, and soon the sounds stopped.
Vatanen picked up his ransacked rucksack, took it into the bivouac, hugged the hare in his arms, and looked at the horizon, the edge of the forest. There was more raven’s blood in the tin than meat, he knew, and there was enough cruelty in him to laugh out loud at his foul play.
And it looked as if even the hare might be laughing, too.
14
The Sacrificer
The week after the raven’s death, Vatanen left the Posio marsh and went to Sodankylä, about ninety miles north of the Arctic Circle. Spending a few days resting at a hotel there, he met the chairman of the Sompio Reindeer Owners’ Association, who offered him a job repairing a bunkhouse in Läähkimä Gorge in the Sompio Nature Reserve. It was just the thing.
He bought a rifle with a telescopic sight, skis, carpenter’s tools, and food for several weeks. He ordered a taxi and drove a hundred miles farther north along the Tanhua road, into the wild forest land. At the Värriö fork he came across a group of reindeer herdsmen sitting around a fire at the roadside.
“Can’t figure it out,” said one. “The hares around here have been white for weeks, but that one there’s still in its summer coat.”
“Could be a brown hare.”
“Never—a brown hare’s bigger.”
“It’s a southern hare,” Vatanen explained. The taxi driver helped him get his luggage out of the taxi. It was snowing somewhat, but not enough for skiing yet.
The herdsmen offered Vatanen coffee. The hare sniffed the men’s forest smell with curiosity, showing no fear.
“If Kaartinen sees that, he’ll sacrifice it,” one of the herdsmen told Vatanen.
“Used to be a teacher, maybe a priest, too, in the south. He does that—sacrifices animals.”
This Kaartinen, it emerged, was still a youngish man, a ski instructor at Vuotso. In late autumn, out of season, he tended to ski in the nature park and live in the bunkhouse at Vittumainen Ghyll, near Läähkimä Gorge.
The herdsmen were still sitting by the fire as Vatanen hoisted his heavy equipment on his shoulders, took a look at the map, and disappeared into the forest. The hare followed, hopping joyously.