Entering the shrine, Ha-yeon hurriedly took out two talisman papers and drew Protective Talismans. (保身平安符: a protection charm that wards off death-spirits and evil and safeguards the body).
Then she poured red beans and salt into pouches and slipped them into her bag.
When she opened the door, Geon-woo was already there, changed into comfortable clothes.
“Oh my! You should take your time and keep eating.”
“How are you planning to go by yourself…”
“Me? If I just follow the way they went down, I’ll manage somehow…”
Geon-woo let out a deep sigh. Employer or not, she was still a girl.
“The path that boar took isn’t one just anyone can follow.”
“Even so, I have to give them something.”
“Is there really a need for you to go into the pathless mountain right now, to those two men with guns and four dogs?”
“If I don’t, something terrible will happen!”
“Alright. If it has to be right now, I trust you have a reason. But the path is dangerous, and if you get lost out there and night falls, then what?”
“Then I’ll take a lantern.”
Calmly, Geon-woo chose his words so as not to bruise her feelings.
“Heavenly Maiden, if the goal is to find them, please hear me out for a moment.”
“Yes?”
“A woman shouldn’t go alone into pathless woods like that. There could be snares or traps. And we don’t even need to go that way.”
“We don’t?”
“Listen. There’s a safer, more certain way to meet them.”
Ha-yeon felt her anxious urgency gradually subside.
He waited for her breathing to settle further, then continued.
“Hunters like that use a pickup truck or some big vehicle. They need to load their kill in it.”
“In that case…”
“Their truck will be somewhere down in the valley, and since there is only one road leading out to the highway from here, no matter which forest road they took, we can just wait for them at the village entrance.
Dragging a boar that size with just two men will take a while, so it’ll be some time before they come out anyway.”
“Ah, that makes sense!”
Geon-woo held out his hand. Embarrassed, Ha-yeon slapped it. Smack!
“ Fighting !!!”
“Not ‘fighting’, I mean hand me the backpack. I’ll carry it.”
Face flushed, Ha-yeon passed him the bag.
“I passed the test, so I should do my farm servant duties properly, right?”
Geon-woo climbed the hill from which he’d looked down on Saeam-dang earlier. Ha-yeon followed, and the little girl spirit sprang from the stone tomb and skipped after them.
***
- Skree, skree, skree…
- Hut, hut, hut, hut…
The boar that had fallen from the cliff squealed in pain. Beneath it, a hound lay pinned, ribs broken, tongue lolling as it drew its last breath.
“Do you know how much this dog cost…? Damn… what a cursed ravine.”
“Min-gu hyung, I don’t even know what to say.”
The hounds had trailed the blood and driven the boar to the cliff. As the weakened boar sank down, one seized its nape.
In the struggle, the boar’s tusk snagged a dog’s GPS collar, and in a split second both the boar and dog tumbled over the edge.
“Ugh, I busted my back getting down here, what the hell is this crap.”
Min-gu clicked his tongue, and aimed at the temple of the fallen, squealing boar.
- Bang!
The boar shuddered as if shocked, then went still.
Jong-sik and Min-gu tied ropes to the boar’s four legs. Jong-sik slung the gasping hound over his shoulder.
With the other dogs leading, they dragged the boar down toward the valley.
After about thirty minutes, their pickup came into view where a forest road crossed above the ravine. Jong-sik penned the hounds in the crate on the bed and laid the still-breathing dog in the cargo bay.
They stowed the bagged firearms on the back seat, then took out a one-liter soju bottle and a cooler.
“Even if we’re down, we still drink, right?”
“Yeah. Let’s knock one back and shake it off, hyung.”
“Right, boar galls are better than bear bile. This taste is why I can’t quit.”
“Haven’t had gall-liquor in ages. I’m dying for it, haha.”
“Okay, then let’s do it while it’s fresh.”
Min-gu drew his knife and slit the boar’s belly a handspan or so, reached in, and fished out the gallbladder.
Steam rose from the organ as he pricked it and drained it into the soju bottle. The liquor turned a greenish yellow.
“You can only have this as a chaser right now.”
Next Min-gu pulled out the liver. Snickering, Jong-sik hurried to the truck for a cutting board, salt, and a bottle of sesame oil.
While Jong-sik mixed the oil dip, Min-gu poured the gall-liquor into beer glasses. They sliced the liver, dipped pieces in the oil, and chased them with the bitter drink.
The rich, iron tang of liver met the foul, bitter reek of the liquor.
“Ahh… it melts.”
“Absolutely killer, hyung- nim .”
They wiped the blood from their mouths and refilled each other’s glasses.
“That bastard earlier, dared to hit someone? You okay?”
“Forget it. A bullet went by; anyone would be mad. How were we supposed to know someone was there?”
“We’re lucky nobody got hit.”
“True.”
“Do you know?”
Min-gu’s eyes turned sinister.
“If that bullet had even grazed one of them, both of them would be dead now.”
“What do you mean?”
“If one got hurt and called it in, that’s a gun incident. We’re looking at injury by firearm, illegal possession, unlicensed hunting, poaching in a national park… prison or fines up the wazoo.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“So rather than rot like that, if we just shoot ’em both, out here in this mountain hollow, nobody would know. Heh heh.”
“Huh? Come on, Min-gu hyung, that’s wrong.”
“You never know. When it comes down to it…”
Min-gu drained his glass. The one-liter bottle was already down to a third.
Jong-sik wondered if that wasn’t just drunken talk. The hyung he’d known from the hunting forum for years felt a little frightening today.
“Jong-sik, there’s too much liquor, I can barely taste the gall.”
“Hyung, that’s why I told you not to buy the one-liter.”
“Jong-sik, how about dog’s gall. Ever tried it?”
“Dog gall? Hyung?”
“If there’s none, then shouldn’t we, as hunters, make do by sourcing it locally?”
“Where would we get a dog?”
Min-gu pointed at his hound sprawled in the truck bed. The hound that was still barely breathing.
Jong-sik’s eyes flew wide.
“Hyung-nim, absolutely not. You’ve had way too much. You should probably stop now. I’ll drive us down later.”
“Our Joy! Joy’s last gift to us!”
Staggering, Min-gu got up and moved to the bed.
With the sharpness of the knife still stained with boar’s blood and Min-gu’s mind far too intoxicated, Jong-sik was too frightened to actively stop him. All he could do was open and close his mouth in vain.
“Min-gu hyung, that’s your dog. It’s Joy, Joy! Hyung-nim!”
“Once it’s dead~ nothing matters. Meat is meat. Joy, Daddy loved you lots, okay? Make sure you catch lots of boars when you get to the good place, yeah?”
The hound saw the strange look in its master’s eyes and the flash of a knife that had slit so many bellies. It tried to struggle free of terror, but its life clung by a thread.
- Yip!
With that final cry, its legs stopped twitching. The crated dogs cowered, eyes wide with fear.
Jong-sik couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Dog galls are quite tiny. Hey, I can’t even spike the liquor with this.”
Min-gu turned and dangled the little bladder before Jong-sik’s eyes. He barely choked back a gag.
“This one’s too small, so I’ll just eat it, okay?”
“Y-yeah. Go ahead.”
Min-gu popped it into his mouth, swallowed, and downed another round.
“Mmm… feel that heat. I can feel our Joy’s strength spreading through me.”
“Hyung, aren’t you drinking way too much?”
“It’s fine. Let’s just totally nourish ourselves today. Good thing we got the boar. If not, I’d have taken something else up there.”
Min-gu chuckled, eyes red and glossy. Jong-sik forced a laugh to go along.
* * *
Geon-woo and Ha-yeon passed the Saeam-dang signboard and walked down the forest road.
“Manager Do, are we sure we’ll find them?”
“I can’t swear to it, but if we wait, we’ll see them.”
Geon-woo kept thinking about what she had said when she stood up.
“But Heavenly Maiden, if cause and effect and inevitable justice will take their course, why help them?”
“Mm…”
Ha-yeon fell silent a moment.
As Grandma said, ‘those who do good receive blessing, those who accrue karma receive punishment, that’s heaven’s law and an old, unfailing truth.’ Even if not now, it comes in the next generation or after death.
But giving people a chance to realize their karma and repent, that too is the shaman’s work.
“Because it’s my job. I’m trying, however clumsily, to buy them time to see their karma and their guilt.”
“Is it true they could die today?”
“I have things I can see and feel. It’s still daytime now, but come evening and night, ‘those things’ grow stronger.”
Ha-yeon sighed.
“No matter how you explain it, some people just won’t know. It can’t be helped.”
“To be honest, I don’t understand at all.”
“And it isn’t only for those two. There’s something I have to do for the animals that died.”
The hideous death-spirit’s shape and writhing rose in her mind again, and she shuddered.
“We’re almost to the village.”
* * *
They reached the village entrance. The sun was about to dip.
First, Ha-yeon went to the village head’s house by the community hall, the same elder Geon-woo had asked for directions that morning.
“This mornin’ a truck headed up that way, toward Cheongso-gol. Had some mean dogs with ’em… how many was it?”
“Couldn’t say. Maybe three, four?”
The headman’s sturdy wife chimed in.
“We been workin’ the terraces all day and ain’t seen ’em come down. They’re likely still up the ravine.”
Ha-yeon and Geon-woo thanked them. The headman poked straws into two apple juices and handed them over.
“By the way, our Heavenly Maiden, you settlin’ in up there alright? Next time you head up, say so; I’ll drive you to the fork. But this young fella is…”
“Yes, I’m Do Geon-woo. I’ll be assisting at Saeam-dang starting today.”
“What a fine young man. Just one trip up there’ll wear you clean out.”
The headman patted Geon-woo’s shoulder, told him, “When you get off later, don’t forget to take a few sacks of fertilizer from the truck,” and went inside.
Ha-yeon perched on the headman’s cultivator and sipped her apple juice. Geon-woo stepped off a bit and lit a cigarette.
The smoke he drew deep scattered over the road.
Just then, a rough engine sound rose from behind. Both turned.
“Manager Do!”
“Looks like that’s them.”
From a different forest road to the left of the one they’d come down, a blue pickup emerged.
Ha-yeon’s eyes fixed on the pickup as it rolled toward them.
“That’s the one. Heavenly Maiden, this is the only road out. Do we stop them?”
Her gaze went to the truck bed.
It had a canvas cover, but inside the dogs were barking in terror, and from the back, blood-soaked sawdust dropped in clumps whenever the chassis rocked.
“Heavenly Maiden?”
Ha-yeon saw it. The death-spirit coiled like a snake in the bed, raising its head. New faces had sprouted, the boar from before, and the hound.
- It’s scary! It’s scary!
The little girl spirit hid behind the Heavenly Maiden.
Geon-woo raised a hand, bringing the truck to a stop.
A rank musk, blood, and livestock filth reeked in the air. Pressed under Geon-woo’s aura, the death-spirit tucked its head back into its coils.
The front window rolled down.
“Well if it isn’t that couple we bothered earlier. When’d you two come down? What’s up?”
===