Hunting for Snow

It was right as we cleared a thick nest of bushes. Beneath the snow’s delicate crust, faint reds peeked through.

Crowberries.

I had one vivid memory about my mother – helping her pick crowberries. She would mainly use them to make wine, pies and jams but they were also fine raw if you didn’t mind the acrid after taste.

Kol blinked. “You’re kidding.”

I brushed snow away carefully, revealing small clusters of the deep red berries. I ate one after the other greedily like I was stealing them. Kol crouched beside me, staring at me as if asking he could have some. I suppose there was no harm in helping the poor bastard. I showed him how to turn the berries between your fingers—how rotten ones looked. We ate in silence at first, fingers red and numb.

“…They’re good,” he admitted eventually.

Was that acknowledgement in the air? Feels nice.

Of course, that wouldn’t be enough to satiate our hunger. We needed real food and so we needed to hunt.

“Wild hogs were in season,” he said though I’m not sure how true that statement was. We lived in eternal winter, there was only one season.

Then, tracks. Fresh ones.

A blessing from the gods?

Kol moved like the forest had wings propelling him forward. I struggled to keep up. We were running in the snow after all, but he wasn’t fazed. Just I had done with father all those years, I mirrored Kol’s movement exactly, hoping to finally hone in on some type of awareness I lacked.

He suddenly knelt, removed his gloves and pressed a bare hand into the upturned earth.

“Warm,” he whispered.

The rooting stretched like a brown scar across the snow-covered creek bank. Dozens of cloven tracks overlapped, leading toward a dense cedar break.

My gut tightened. Food it said.

I may not be the most experienced of hunters but, I did try to make up for it with knowledge. And If I remembered correctly, only male hogs travelled alone while the females, travelled in groups with their young - collectively they were known as Sounder.

The trail was easy to follow through the open field, but once we hit the pine grove, the snow thinned. Kol took the lead, scanning higher for rubbed saplings.

“They stopped here,” he said, pointing to a small, frozen puddle of urine near a massive oak. “Probably grazing.”

The tracks suggested a meandering path, indicating the animals felt safe and were moving to a bedded area. The musk in the air thickened.

The thicket of hemlocks ahead was nearly impenetrable. The scent was overpowering now, a pungent mix of wet earth and raw sewage. We seemed to be in sync, moving parallel each other, twenty feet apart, my small knife ready.

Kol seemed to signal something with his finger held high. I think he forgot my hunting credentials, so I just checked the wind and nodded. Hopefully It won’t bite me later.

Then came sounds: soft grunts, a muffled squeal. A hunting late in the afternoon. I peered into the small clearing. A half dozen young shoats, striped like watermelons, were huddled together for warmth, snuffling at the frozen ground. They looked harmless, almost cute in their vulnerability. Was this right? To hunt them?

“Kol?” I whispered. “Isn’t it dangerous to hunt a young one alone?”

His jaw tightened.

I could see even he was hesitating.

“We need the meat.”

He was right of course.

A guttural roar, more bear than pig, shattered our beliefs.

It was a boar. I could clearly tell thanks to the prominent sharp tusks that curved upwards. He burst from the underbrush nearly taking me with it, if not for the push from Kol. I tumbled to the other side startling the shoats. They scattered in every direction, squealing in blind panic.

As I turned my body, I saw the boar had hit a tree slamming into bark with a thundercrack. Wood exploded in shards. Just our luck.

We expected sows, but instead got the father and he was furious. The beast shook its massive head, spraying saliva and steam from its snout. His small, intelligent eyes locked onto Kol, the dangerous of us two.

Kol got low, dragging his blade against the snow drawing the boar’s attention. The boar needed no further invitation. He lowered his head, tusks white against its dark, muddy hide and became beast of muscle and rage.

I scrambled to my feet, leaving the unwinnable fight. The young shoats were still within sight to my left. I knew their speed-up to thirty miles per hour-faster than I could sprint in this deep snow but it was still better than what I had escaped.

“Irrythik,”Kol called out. “Stay.”

Aaargh, dammit.

I dove behind the oak tree, flattening myself against the rough bark.

A hunting strategy according to Kol. His plan was simple, to direct the boar toward me for a finishing blow. Me? We might as well just go hungry.

Kol sidestepped letting the boars momentum past him then used the flat of his knife hilt to deliver a sharp, solid thwack to the animal’s flank that only deepened the boar’s fury.

The boar skidded to a halt in the snow just a few feet from me, snorting heavily. It spun around with suprising agility, ignoring me completely.

“Climb! Now!” Kol shouted, backing away slowly.

Oh my, I had forgotten that part of the plan. I reached for a low branch, hauling myself up the oak trunk, the freezing sap sticking to my gloves.

I was ready.

Kol retreated up the slippery creek bank, toward a tangle of exposed roots then made a sharp turn circling back to the oak tree I was on disappearing to the side.

The boar stood panting below, confused by the disappearance of its enemy.

“Now,” Kol whispered.

I jumped.

Screaming like an idiot and missed.

The boar sidestepped slowly, I could swear he was mocking me.

“Back!” Kol hissed.

I couldn’t move.

Kol dove into the charge, rolling past the animal’s blindside and driving his knife low into the back of his foreleg. Crack of bones and the boar screamed.

The sound was disheartening—too full of pain.

The boar spun wildly, blood steaming against the snow, charging at me. I stumbled back, tripping on a root. A tusk passed inches from my skull falling just beside me.

“Do it!”

I rolled over the boar and jammed my knife into the soft place beneath his jaw where father had told me to when all else fails. The warmth of his blood flooded my gloves. The beast staggered once — twice — and then collapsed into the snow with a final, trembling breath.

Silence fell so suddenly it felt wrong.

Far off, I think I heard the shoats crying.

I stood there shaking, unable to look away.

Finally, Father. My first kill.

Kol knelt beside the carcass, one hand resting on the stomach. For a moment, his face was not warrior, nor hunter but a man.

Then, he showed me how to work the joints. Where to cut, how to smoke it. Even how to get woods from winter. His hands never hesitated. Every motion had meaning.

“You need to learn this,” he said. “It’s disrespectful to waste this meat….out of respect for the animal.”

My hands shook but I repeated his instructions, then he sent me for wood. The fire came up low and hidden. Fat hissed, the smell of roasted meat filling me up. With that sweet smell, also came guilt. I suddenly craved the smell of sewage.

When we ate, neither of us spoke