The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [58]
The bear studied the body in its arms, somewhat like an ogre that had gotten hold of a doll and didn’t know what to do with it. Tentatively it took a bite at Vatanen’s stomach and brought about a stabbing cry of pain. Shocked, the bear threw the man against the cabin wall and fled through the window, out into the open air.
Vatanen felt his stomach. He was seeing pink and white stars, and his stomach was wet. Had it disemboweled him? Horror! He reached for his gun, crouched out into the yard, and fired into the darkness. The bear had fled. The moon was shining.
He went back inside, lit a lantern, and examined his stomach. It was slippery with blood and bear slobber, but nothing lethal, it seemed. The bear had bitten experimentally; actually, it was more of a nip. He was not disemboweled.
The hare was limping. The bear must have stepped on it accidentally, for if it had struck a blow, the hare would undoubtedly have been smashed to a pulp against the wall.
Vatanen kicked the remains of the table against the wall, nailed a blanket across the window, and bandaged a sheet around his stomach. The wound ached: the bear had lacerated him enough for that.
He picked the hare up and hugged it, stroked its innocent white coat, and promised: “Before dawn tomorrow, I’ll be following that bear’s tracks. Its time has come.”
The hare’s sensitive white whiskers trembled earnestly. It looked as though it agreed: the bear had to be killed! A hare was thirsting after a bear’s blood!
22
The White Sea
The moon set. Vatanen stuffed his knapsack with several days’ provisions, thrust twenty cartridges into the flap-pocket, loaded his gun, and sharpened his ax. He took along five packs of cigarettes for good measure, some matches, and some ski wax. To the hare he said: “You’ll come along, too, won’t you?” He left a note on the table: I’m off after a bear. May be gone a few days.—Vatanen
He closed the bunkhouse door behind him, waxed his skis, put them on, and shouldered his knapsack and his gun. There were bear tracks all over the place, but in spite of the dark he identified fresh tracks farther out, showing the bear leaving at a high trot. He pushed off on their trail; the snow was pretty firm under his skis.
“Now, Mr. Bloody Bear, we’ll see.”
The tracks led across the gorge itself. Vatanen skied off at a strong and even pace; his back began to sweat under the pressure of the knapsack. The hare limped along at his side.
The March sun rose into a brilliant sky. The air was exhilaratingly crisp; the snow squeaked as the sticks prodded; skiing conditions were excellent. He relished the motion and the glittering snow—so bright in the rising sun, it made his forehead ache if he opened his eyes wide.
The tracks showed that the bear had calmed down: probably it felt it had escaped. Vatanen speeded up: he might well catch up with his quarry.
In the afternoon, he swooped into a thick grove of spruce and saw that the bear had been lying down there. It may have heard the skis coming and taken to its heels. More skiing, this meant, perhaps many days of it before he caught up with the beast, if then. Fortunately, the snow gave way under the bear more than under the skier.
He came to an open sweep of marshland, where the tracks led south. Across a prospect of six or seven miles he glimpsed his quarry: the bear was a little black dot slinking into snowy forest at the far side. That spurred him on. Thrusting hard, he flew across the flats.
The sun went down. Where the underlying growth was thickest, the tracks were hard to make out. It was time to stop and eat. He felled a large dead tree and made a fire from the top branches; he fried some reindeer meat in his pan, drank some tea, and slept for a few hours. When he woke, the moon had risen in a perfectly clear sky; it was possible to follow the tracks again.
The brilliant night and snowy Lapland wilderness had a cruel beauty. It was too exciting for Vatanen to feel fatigue. Sweat froze on his back as the frost took hold. His lashes froze, clogging his eyes; he had