Part 8

Gaupa understood what had happened. The Swede’s bullet had struck the elk’s antler and was shattered, one bit of lead ricochetting and hitting the dog.

“Bjönn! Don’t you hear me, Bjönn?” he whispered once more half beseechingly.

Oh no, Bjönn could not hear anything any more now. He began to nod his head in a strange way, something gurgled in his throat. A large tear leapt out of the dog’s eye and rolled down over the grey muzzle. The dog stretched himself. He was tired of the endless chase. He wanted to rest.

The last thing Bjönn from Lynx Hut did in his life was to stretch himself.

* * * * *

A man was sitting with a dead dog on his knees. It happened on Bog Hill in Ré Valley. The murmur of the river sounded steady and calm, like the very breath of night.

Gaupa thought of the Swede’s Bullet. It concealed strange powers; it had travelled through a body before, and it knew its way. Why, oh why, then, did it take away the only friend, the only child he possessed? It would be small comfort walking down to Lower Valley in the morning.

Gaupa waited for the dawn. Bjönn seemed so strangely heavy on his knees. He felt how the warmth of life slowly left the soulless body of the dog, remembered what the two had shared of better things and worse throughout the years, and the tears fell fast down Gaupa’s unkempt face.

Daylight came. In his arms he carried Bjönn to a heap of rocks tenderly as a mother carries her sleeping baby to bed.

He displaced some pieces of rock, and when he laid Bjönn down there he felt that he was burying some of his joy in life. He sat down, his shoulders heaving.

When did Gaupa weep last? He did not remember. It was long ago, long, long ago.

Day broke over Ré Valley.

§ 26

Time floated over the wilderness.

In summer it is warm, in winter cold. Three days before Christmas the sun ceases to descend lower in the sky, rises again, and after a long while he starts work on a fresh spring down on earth.

Through half the year the lakes lie with their eyes closed, for half a year they mirror the sunset. The rivers stiffen when the immigrating birds go south. While the bear dreams in his winter lair, the trees stand bloodless, breaking in the frost. But when the living ploughshares of the wild geese go northwards once more, then the trees spread out all their branches, embracing life.

Such is time, when beasts are born, eat, and die. Such was time when Rauten went towards old age.

His body followed the all-subduing law of nature. At Candlemass time he lost his antlers, which invariably grew out again, every time with more tines. When the leaves fell he roared his hoarse mating call at dusk and at dawn. In the summer nights his huge, dark body would glide through the forest out to Gipsy Lake where the snow-white waterlilies were floating.

On some clear, cruel, frosty winter night he would perhaps stand on guard beside a soft-eyed cow and a calf that was his own flesh and blood. Then Venus, queen of the starry heavens, would glow large and bright above Ré Mountains, lending a pale shimmer to the white snow. The Aurora Borealis would shine bright and strange, then the breath from the elks’ nostrils would smoke in the night.

When once in a while Rauten lay on Black Mountain looking out across the forest, all the happenings of which his life was so rich would stir within him. Probably he did not remember, not live his reminiscences once more in his mind. We do not know about that. But each remarkable incident had set its mark in him in the shadowy life of his soul. They had sharpened his instincts, enriched his experience. There were incidents at all times of the year, in all changing lights of day and night, in sunny heat and in frosty weather—some concerning animals, some human beings.

But he grew solitary and still more solitary as age came on. He sought places where man but rarely made spots on the earth with his shoes of animals’ hide, where the steel tooth of the axe but rarely gnawed a tree, where old times were still dreaming.

For the Ré Valley woods began to be open. Foresters’ huts grew out of the earth, creating unrest. Old trees died, changed their existence, and left Ré Valley. Their stumps stayed, time and weather eating them as ravens eat carrion.

Many a dog had chased Rauten, but their muzzles grew grey and their eyes blue, and one day the barrel of a gun blew out their lives. And still Rauten walked across Black Mountains.

* * * * *

But what of Gaupa?

He also aged; he aged rapidly when Bjönn died. For after that time he lost his love of the woods somehow, and then he seemed to shrink within himself.

Soon he was no longer a wild cat, he became a tame, domestic cat. No more his fire shone at the capercailzie’s play in the blue spring evenings when the song thrush was silent in the tree-tops and flew away for the night. A sleepy petroleum lamp shone dully in Lynx Hut, where the air was not light and pure as drifted snow, but stank of leather and old footwear.

He felt as if something had died within him. His mind was like an everlasting rainy day, monotonous, without a gleam of sun. No more tumults, only silence and death, his mind was luke-warm like marsh water.

Gaupa was not well either. He needed but to drink three or four cups of coffee one after the other to make his heart unmanageable. It would not keep time, but beat eagerly and quickly, and then it lagged, nearly stopped as if lame.... Well, well, that heart had seen hard days, as well he knew.

Gaupa’s calves grew full of small bulbs under his skin from varicose veins. And then rheumatism came. Working in his shop he could feel the rheumatism, like fine red-hot wires being stitched into his body. It was worst in his knees, for there something was gnawing, gnawing like sharp teeth, everlastingly hungry. Well, well, you know those calves and those knees had been through some hard work in his life.

Once somebody asked him to go to a doctor, but then Gaupa guffawed in mocking merriment.

Alas, there was small comfort in Lynx Hut now. No Bjönn came to place his head on his knees while he was stitching shoes, no Bjönn met him with tail waving in the open door when he had been out and came home, no Bjönn shared his bed under the sheepskin covering in the night. When he woke up at night he caught himself listening for the dog’s breath, for Bjönn used to breathe so heavily, so humanly. Gaupa remembered so well.

When he was seventy years old he was converted. After that time the poor old soul would often sit in one of the foremost desks in the schoolhouse, piously listening to what Hans Uppermeadow, the “high priest,” had to announce. He would sit there in his simple blue-striped celluloid collar without a tie. That was the only Sunday best he possessed, and no one knew when last it was washed.

Somehow revivalism did not quite submerge him, for he could not help thinking of other things while the preacher up there threatened his audience with hell and sulphur. It might, for instance, occur to him that the moustache of that fellow was the very spit of the other’s whiskers, and in a bound Gaupa’s thoughts were far from the schoolroom and its close atmosphere. No, he could not get the real hang of the revivalist business, and before he entered upon his seventy-second year he gave it up and became a worldling once more.

Only he ceased to swear, and when religious people were with him he might be heard to talk of how quietly time passed down here. Sometimes he would even sigh audibly.

Poor old Gaupa! He was in earnest right enough. He was no Pharisee. Yet his conscience was never quite easy; he was not regularly “saved,” and when his heart started beating out of time he would feel as timid as a hare!

One day he was at Rust helping with some wood-cutting. He went to feed the horses in the evening, and remained in the stable so long that Halstein began to wonder and went in.

There lay Gaupa senseless after a blow from the young black mare. There was a hole in his skull, and Halstein saw the brain matter pulsating.

It was a strange thing, but Gaupa recovered. He was in bed at Rust for a long time, but as soon as he could walk to his own hut he demanded it, and after six months he was very much as before.

One day about Easter time the sheriff, who lived some two miles to the south, saw Gaupa hatless coming across his yard with a long knife in his hand. He wondered a little, and in a moment the maid came rushing into his office and begged him to go out into the kitchen, for Gaupa must have lost his wits.

The sheriff went. There was Gaupa. His hair had withered at the top of his head so that he was quite bald. He wore a blue blouse, and in his right hand he held his knife, shining, freshly sharpened. Yet Gaupa was an exceptionally good-tempered man.

“Good morning, sheriff. I’ve come to skin him. Where do you keep him?”

The sheriff did not understand, but noticed that the corners of Gaupa’s mouth worked harder than ever. “St. Vitus’s dance,” he thought.

“Skin him, d’you say?”

“Yes, of course; don’t you remember I shot the wizard elk in your woods yesterday? I carted him home, large and whole.”

He pointed the knife straight at the sheriff, till the latter felt the blade like a cold pang through his body.

“This knife,” Gaupa went on, “has tasted Rauten once before, and still it is sharp enough to manage the skinning of the elk. Where do you keep him? Eh?”

The sheriff understood that Gaupa’s mind was queer, and he made believe that everything was as Gaupa said.

“Oh yes,” he replied; “I’ll find him for you soon enough, but you will have a drink first, won’t you?”

Certainly, Gaupa would like a drink; he had one drink, and then another. By that time he forgot his errand and went quietly home to Lynx Hut.

Two days later he went to Lyhus and behaved in exactly the same manner. There was no gainsaying the fact that the day before he had shot Rauten and drove him, in all his bulk, to the farm, so that everyone might see the wizard elk. And now he had come to skin him.

From that time Gaupa was out of his mind. People guessed it was a result from that blow from the horse’s hoof, which seemed probable enough.

Every once in a while he would go to a farm to skin an elk he had shot in their forest, and if only they agreed and said he ought to have the drink due before such a work was undertaken, or they offered him food, he could generally be talked away from his purpose, so that he forgot all about skinning.

The authorities attempted to lodge him at some farm, but Gaupa simply walked home to Lynx Hut, where he would sit busy with his awl and his waxed thread, working quite decently.

But the urchins found great fun in going up to him and showing him a naked knife, for as soon as he saw it he would start telling the story of the elk calf on Black Mountain slopes, always in the same manner, nearly in the same words. He never told anything else than that he cut half an ear from the calf, never anything more detailed about Rauten after the elk had grown up. If they asked him they could see how he strove and strove to remember, but he was never sure. It was always the same story again and again, how he held the calf between his knees, and when he finished they would hear him mumbling something no one understood except one single word: “Beast, beast.”

Later on he imagined he had killed an animal he called Golden Bear. Then he went down the valley to the rich forest owners, to their grand farms with red storehouses and white dwellings with glass balls on the top of their flag-poles, shining like silver in the sunlight. And then Gaupa never stopped till he got speech with the great men themselves, for he could buy their woods and their farms and everything they possessed. They might have their payment in cash and the price was of no consideration, for he had killed the Golden Bear.

Thus fared Gaupa, the elk-killer, in the evening of his life.

§ 27

One spring Lynx Hut remained locked, at first for days, then for weeks, then for ever. Lynx Hut is still locked.

They looked for Gaupa that spring, every one in the Valley who could crawl in forest or mountain. The sheriff donned his uniform cap, used the law and ordered people out. A long chain of men zig-zagged across the Lower Valley slopes, east of the river and west of the river. But no Gaupa was found.

What little he possessed was put to auction. His cobbling tools were scattered over the valley as if by a gust of wind. Martin Lyhus bought “The Tempest.”

I visited Lynx Hut some years ago. It was empty, with naked walls. A hole gaped in the brickwork of the chimney where the stove flue had once gone in, and the window sill was strewn with dead flies. I found a dried-up squirrel on the hearth. The little animal had, I suppose, climbed down the chimney and been unable to climb up, finally lying down mouth open for the food which should have kept it alive.

But also I found something else.

In a corner lay a dog’s collar of coarse leather. It had a shiny buckle and the inside of the leather was worn smooth. In the collar was sewn with white cobbler’s thread the name “Bjönn.”

The man who unlocked Lynx Hut to me was so white of hair that he seemed to carry fresh snow on his head. He wore a waistcoat with silver buttons, and his name was Halstein Rust. It was he who in the autumn after Gaupa’s disappearance went to the relief officer in Lower Valley and told him what he had found above Gipsy Lake out in Ré Valley. It was also Halstein Rust who told me of Gaupa and Bjönn and the wizard elk, Rauten.

To-day a cross stands alternately in sun and shade outside the tar-soaked wall of Lower Valley Church. Under that cross rests the body of Halstein Rust. But I clearly remember the evening when the white-haired man sat before me, crooked, trembling fingers pointing southwards towards Ré Valley, and telling me how Gaupa’s life ended.

§ 28

That spring there were masses of snow in the mountains. First mild weather came in March and afterwards the frost lasted till far into May, then the weather changed suddenly, the air vibrating with sunny heat from morning till night.

The tributary rivers became roaring mad in a few days, Lower River went greenish yellow like ale, lifting timber jams of hundreds of logs, sweeping them along, sucking them on in their mad rush, until the logs would float peacefully into the big lake two leagues to the south.

The birch buds opened in a night. In the morning the trees were thickly covered with what looked like green butterflies. A strong perfume filled the steaming air.

It was late at night, the distant hills were blue. The northern sky was smouldering, a soft tone of sweet sadness rose from the fiery heavens, lulling the senses, like the melody of soft, slowly rolling waves. The people of Lower Valley were asleep.

A belated snipe flew chirping over Lynx Hut.

Gaupa came out, locked his door, and put the key in his pocket. He carried a knapsack, and took out a pair of skis. He remained there as if making sure in his thought that nothing was forgotten. But his ideas were confused, lacking strength to arrange themselves in any definite order, and Gaupa went towards the River with skis on his shoulder and a sack on his back, but his rifle hung peacefully on the wall inside Lynx Hut.

In the darkness of that May night a man walked on the crusted snow on the slopes towards Ré Valley. The skis made a dry grating sound on the snow crust, the man breathed quickly and heavily, and rested sadly often. He grew so very thirsty, and every once in a while he lay down at some brooklet and drank the water from the melting snow.

After midnight the snow crust became stone hard. The man went south along the flat marshes near Ré River, and for such an old man he went remarkably quickly. Gaupa had not in vain been the man who used to show everybody else his back both walking and running.

About two o’clock the door of Gipsy Lake Hut groaned, and on the hard wooden seat where Gaupa and Bjönn used to rest side by side after many a sweat dripping day Gaupa lay alone, after many years.

Strangely enough, that night his brain cleared. He felt as if he had awakened from sleep, and without making a fire he lay, looking backwards in time.

He had lived his life as he himself wanted it, poor in possessions, but rich in happenings. Throughout all the years he could remember there blew a cold breeze from windworn trees and naked mountains. His memories stood out like bright flowers, smelling sweetly of heather and moss. Best of all he remembered the three days’ chase after Rauten, Bjönn’s last chase. Even that time the rumour was true. Bad luck had followed on Rauten’s heels.

Gaupa heard a wood-cock swishing by Gipsy Lake. Then all was silence again.

A little later an owl started hooting in the trees outside the hut, and to Gaupa the hooting seemed to come out from the walls, from the ceiling, from the floor.... The owl is a sinister bird and predicts death, and Gaupa felt quite creepy listening to the sound of the voice. He opened the door and peeped up in the half light between the trees. The bird was silent then, but he could not see it. Yet as soon as he lay down the bird’s voice was heard again, sad, wailing, almost like broken notes of a dirge. The tune never rose, never sank, always keeping the same level.

He went out many times to frighten it away, and although that bird sat just above the roof, he was quite unable to see it; he could almost believe it was a spirit sitting aloft, trying to tell him something.

Day sent a grey square of light through the open door on to the floor of Gipsy Lake Hut. Darkness crept into the corners and hid there.

Then suddenly and unexpectedly the old man jerked his head, steadied his hands against the bench, and half rose. His eyes lost the film of deadness they had had lately and had become keen.

Through the open door he heard the crush, crush, crush of the snow crust shattering under steps heavy enough to break it.

Gaupa knew the snow crust to be hard enough to carry a man, even a heavy one. He rose on his feet and stood in the door, crouching a little, both hands holding on to the lintel above his head.

Crush, crush, crush! he heard from a little mound covered with young trees, just beyond the clearing in front of the hut. Then the sound stopped as if cut off, and the silence afterwards was filled with the boiling rumble from the heath cocks in the marsh by the lake. The owl was silent.

What came over him? Was he afraid? He almost looked like it. His eyes grew keen, staring. His mouth opened, showing his gums with all his teeth still, brown from chewing tobacco.

An elk’s head rose from the bushes on the mound, and Gaupa gave a startled sob.

“Rauten!” he whispered, and his excited face showed everything but fear. It was like the yell from an old, half-blind deer-hound who unexpectedly finds big game, a yell of exultation, a dying fire flaming up.

The elk’s head turned abruptly, a long back floated over the bushes, and once more the snow crust crashed where Rauten ran.

Gaupa turned back to the hut. “The Tempest,” “The Tempest,” his thoughts were wailing. But the rifle was at home in Lynx Hut, rusty with years of disuse.

He was running about on the floor of the hut, his eyes seeking a weapon, anything that could be used for taking life—murmuring all the time: “Sure it is the wizard elk, sure it is the wizard elk!”

Then his hand happened to touch his dagger, hanging at his right-hand side; the touch reminded him of something, and he stopped. He wrenched out the knife, his feet stole quickly across the floor and through the doorway. Shortly afterwards the old man was running on the hard snow, stooping, bareheaded, in his blouse, and with long, homespun trousers flapping round his legs.

Before him were the elk spoors, deep holes straight through the rough snow crust, the bottom of them showing the wide-apart hoofs of Rauten, and the grains of snow in the holes were like pearls.

Gaupa saw how the bits of broken snow crust had flown under the elk’s hoofs, and once more he was the old Gaupa. Body and soul were taken back across the years. He was no longer a rheumatic old cripple running bareheaded towards the rise of the sun, knife in hand. No, he was a man with playing muscles and foaming blood, a shaggy savage who hunted an animal to eat it and to clothe himself in its skin.

The snow crust was so hard that he ran as if on a floor, the sound of his steps was only a slight scratching as from a lynx’s claws in bark. He heard the wizard elk just in front, the beast sinking into the snow till under its belly, and inside him was the song that here was Rauten, Rauten! while audibly he mumbled, “I’ve got him now, I’ve got him now.”

Above the spring-black woods of Ré Valley, the mountains foamed like white waterfalls. In the east the rosy dawn glowed, sending a breath of whitish yellow before her on the sky which in farthest west was still deep-sea blue.

There was Black Mountain with its white head, and the forest down its breast like a shaggy beard. Just such a May morning it was when Black Mountain first saw the little elk calf that was to become Rauten.

Now Black Mountain saw something different. On the marsh east of Gipsy Lake an elk bull was plunging heavily in the crusted snow. He tried to leap, but could not. He sank through as if falling at each step and he looked strangely short-legged.

But on the back of that elk sat a man....

Now both Rauten and Gaupa, “The Lynx,” were animals, one born in and of the forest, the other a human being restored to the animal state by the forest. He sat astride of the elk, feeling its lean, sharp back between his legs. His nostrils were full of the scent of game, and he inhaled it and grew drunk from it, like a beast of prey. His hands held on to the mane and one of them held the knife. He lay forwards along Rauten’s neck as if wanting to bite the elk’s throat. Under his nose his beard bristled like feline whiskers.

The marsh was empty again, the elk spoor marking it like a deep scar, and the trees about it seemed to wonder at what they had just seen.

But in the copses to the south the crash of the elk’s hoofs could be heard, and there was Rauten forcing his way, half mad with terror. Every step was an effort, the man on his back and the difficult snow both increased his fear. He wanted to throw the man off. He strained his body till muscles and sinews groaned inside him, but the snow crust was ever faithless; as soon as his hoofs were on the ground, the weight of his body following, the snow crust broke like brittle ice. No matter however much he willed, willed to go forwards, faster, faster—he could not, it was useless.

The bushes waved around him, hitting Gaupa’s face till it smarted and he closed his eyes for fear of being blinded. Just before him he saw the ear that was only half an ear. He saw fur had grown where the knife once cut. He noticed also that the antlers were growing out again after the winter’s moulting. They were covered with fur.

Rauten’s breathing was laboured, long and hissing like bellows in a smithy.

Then Gaupa let go one hand from the elk’s mane, the hand rose, slowly at first, then darting like a flame, and a newly ground knife’s edge drew a shiny line across the dark forest. The knife stopped above Gaupa’s head, then sank like lightning. It sank into the elk’s back, deep up to the haft.

Rauten opened his mouth a little, also his eyes, but did not even groan, only took a few leaps out of the undergrowth to a more open place where the sun had been more powerful so that there was less snow. Two weather-grey stumps ran out of it like long tusks.