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THE WANDERER

The two men were walking cheerless and scared. Their clothes looked alike, shabby and worn out. They were of different age. Judging by the characteristic high cheek-bones of their faces, one could guess they were sort of relatives, most probably, a father and his son. Stoyan, the younger one, was holding an axe in his hand. Pavel, on his part, had asked a neighbour of his to lend him an old hunting rifle, loaded with two bullets. He had no other bullets with him and didn’t even know the right pellets. He was not a huntsman and had not held weapons for forty years.
Both fear and curiosity were worrying the men. They were coming closer to their destination already. A man from the village had described the location in detail and they were getting their bearings quite easily now. It was somewhere there, a hundred feet or so, at the back of the small clearing on the edge of the sparse pine wood, that the corpse of their only cow Minka was lying. In this part of the country, people didn’t have a lot of cattle. The rugged terrain, the lack of food supply base and the poverty, did not allow a family to raise more than two or three domestic animals. The entire five-member family had relied on Minka for living. Their only hope for surviving from that moment on were potatoes and meat of the dead Minka.
Father and son slowed down and nearly stopped. There, on the opposite side in the shade of the trees, they saw Minka which, as it seemed to them, moved its leg. No, they hadn’t been wrong: the hoof of the wounded animal started moving again, even more energetically this time. Forgetting to be cautious and full of hope that their cow was still alive, Pavel and Stoyan quickened pace towards it. There were only about ten metres between them and the cow but the bushes were in the way screening the entire animal from sight. May be Minka was making an effort to stand up?
Then a low, bass-like mooing was heard , which suddenly grew into a fierce roar. It made the two men feel weak in their knees. The sound of broken branches coming towards them was, no doubt, a sign that the bear, which had knocked down Minka, was attacking them. Pavel squeezed the rifle in his hands, as if it were a spade handle, and fired in the direction of the coming danger. The bushes opened and the brownish-black mass fell on the sixty-year old peasant. It was only a fraction of a second before the two silhouettes had merged, when a second shot resounded, stopping on the spot the attacking heap. Up to that moment, Stoyan had been watching in amazement, his eyes wide with terror, aware of how helpless and insignificant he was before the powerful might of the beast. He barely raised his axe and, muttering:”Here you are!”, as if to give it more strength, crashed the steel blade onto the bushy shoulder. Right then, the bear aimed a blow with its other paw, most deftly, knocking the empty weapon out of the father’s hands. The unexpected blow, coming from the young man who had suddenly appeared behind it, had found the animal unprepared putting it off balance. Dazzled by the shot and the blow from the axe, which had followed, the bear rolled over and fell down. A quick exchange of glances was enough for the father and son to make sure they were safe and sound. The next moment they were already running back at a speed they would never be able to achieve again.
……..
In the evening, the usual clamour at the local tavern was going on. When saying “tavern”, what I mean are those strange buildings in remote villages, which are a combination of a conference hall, information centre, trading venue and what not, for the lack of any such places within a range of 25-30 kilometres.
The interior there has not changed for the last two centuries: rough wooden benches and tables, polished by the touch of elbows and dirt, an earth floor and blackened with smoke ceiling beams with gas lamps hanging from them. Drinks were served, naturally, in yuzes, little bottles, whose cleanness was questionable, but had they been clean they would not have been real yuzes!
The tavern-keeper, Uncle Kotze, a stout man with a dirty yellow apron stretched over his bulging belly, kept an ink pencil behind his ear, with which he wrote down the orders on rough brown wrapping paper, each time carefully wetting it with saliva. Because of that,his tongue had acquired a constant violet colour, which, however, impressed nobody for it had always been that way from time immemorial.
Some of the few pieces of evidence testifying that, anyway, we were already in the 21-st century, were the telephone and a cheap Taiwanese hi-fi, which had been tuned, long before, by a man from Sofia, to the Horizon radio station . Nobody, however, had ever tried afterwards to re-tune it, the simple reason being that the connection block didn’t reach from the fridge to the hi-fi. All at once, the clamour in the tavern subsided when Stoyan and his fatherPavel appeared at the door-casing.
“We killed it, the devil take it! It won’t ever bother again three villages,” blew the air out Stoyan.
Excited by the news, the peasants stayed at the tavern late into the night remembering things, telling stories about bears they had heard before and, most naturally, imagining.
In the morning, a group of thirty or so, almost the entire of the male population, headed for the place of the fight. They found the blood of the bear on the spot where Stoyan had slayed it with his axe. The track was going in the direction of the ravine , where it got lost in a narrow but deep creek. They went back to the cow’s corpse, from which hardly anything had remained, just the hooves, the horns the skull and the hind, but not much meat. As if the wounded animal had disappeared .
“You said you’d killed it, scoundrels, didn’t you?” the tavern keeper Uncle Kotze reproached them scornfully.
“Well,it fell down, it did…I shot it twice and Stoyan too, he slashed it with his axe…” Pavel kept excusing himself confused.
“Listen, Pavel, that was a job good-for-nothing. ” added mercilessly the neighbour who had given them the rifle. “The bear is wounded now and is hiding somewhere, gathering spite. If it doesn’t die, there’s trouble in store for us.”
These last words proved prophetical because just as they were on their way back to the village they met the shephard his face ash coloured having lost its natural glow. The terror was still on his face even when his fellow peasants encircled him asking sympathetically about the reasons for his trembling.
“Ttto hhhell with that bbbitch, it killed all the sheep before my very eyes. All forty eight of them!” was explaining Gosho the shepherd tuttering , who used to stammer from time immemorial but not the way he was now.
The news came as an icy shower to the group of men. Almost all of them had had one or two dear sheep in the murdered herd. Gosho had been tendering the animals for years on and the peasants had been giving him some milk or even a little money in return when they managed to collect some.
The meat-eating bear had been running wild for a year in the area of three villages. Stock used to disappear regularly but the owners swallowed the loss in dispair. Lately, however, the bear’s performances had become more frequent, and, what Gosho said, had gone beyond all bounds. The sheep had not even been eaten but killed only, some with a heavy blow, others by biting . It had taken no longer than fifteen minutes for all the poor animals to die from the meat-eating bear’s rage. It was clear to all of them that they had neither experience nor means to handle the critical situation they were in.
In the evening, while at the tavern again, they decided to call another peasant from their village, who had moved to town recently, and who knew someone at the ministry who could help.
Their man called back in two days saying that they’d promised him, at the ministry, to handle the problem as soon as possible. Ten days passed in waiting. Meanwhile, the bear was doing more damage, another three cows and a donkey had been killed. It was most interesting that after killing and biting at the animal, the bear never returned to the carcass again. It was obvious, it had learned a lesson after having been surprised once. Besides animals, it used to attack and destroy remote lodges in the woods. Village people stopped going out in the woods and when they had to, they would always do it in big groups and for a short time. Nobody was safe. Thanks God, there had not been human casualties but it was just a question of time.
One day the telephone at the tavern rang . It was Uncle Bore, their man in the town.
“Hi, Uncle Kotze! Listen, I very much doubt that those guys from the ministry will do the job. Well, I’ve met a person, they’re telling legends about him…He keeps going around and has killed a lot of meat-eating bears. The man says he’s ready to help. You can wait for him to come some of these days, he’ll be coming by bus.”
“Good for you, Bore! We’ll welcome the man the way we should. Don’t you bother about it. We hope he’ll do a good job and save us from the evil.”
The next day, at noon, a little dark man with deep, almost jet-black eyes , entered the tavern. He left his luggage on a bench, sat down close to it and, after saying his greetings, asked about Stoyan and Pavel. The tavern-keeper, who had been expecting to see an important and impressive guest, a killer of meat-eating bears and a wanderer, muttered a greeting in return, saying that the father and son were not around but were due to come in some couple of hours.
“Well, other men from the village are coming to, for we have big problems to solve, anyway…” finished Uncle Kotze in a most mysterious manner.
He was right, the tavern started to fill in an hour. The peasants were gathering in groups, discussing “things of importance”.
The newcomer would hear separate words from time to time.
“They say so, he has killed over 15-20 pieces!” a man was talking excitedly.
“C’mon, have you seen him? Such a fellow wouldn’t have any problems. He must be a rock of a man and would hardly enter through that door !” another fellow added.
“He did it with his bare hands once.” a third man joined in.”It’s said he’s got giant’s power and the eyes of an eagle.”
“You speak too much, but it’s only Bore in our village who has seen the man and no one else. It makes no difference what he’s like. He’s welcome if he can kill a meat-eating bear.” concluded Uncle Kotze and seeing Stoyan and Pavel, who were just coming in, added:”Listen, you two, this man here’s been looking for you..” and the tavern keeper cast a glance at the short stranger.
Stoyan made towards the stranger, looking curiously at him.Then, putting his hands on his waist, scratched his nape and asked:
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I’ve come for that bear. My name’s Boyan. Bore told me I had to help. Are you Stoyan?”
Silence followed which seemed endless. Only the buzz of the old fridge could be heard in the tavern. Somebody was sawing logs with a buck-saw outside. Gradually, the air started filling with sound breaking the uneasiness of the silence.
The peasants’ disappointment was obvious. Was that short man capable of freeing them from the fierce beast? Look how small and frail he was, he was worth pitying! To think only they’d been relying on such a person!
Without feeling hurt by this new confusing situation, Boyan leaned forward to take his rucksack, tossed it over his shoulder and turned to Stoyan:
“Well, let’s go!”
“Listen man, what are you up to? Don’t be cross, we’d imagined some other man, we had…” Stoyan started excusing himself confusedly.
“That’s right, a bigger one, a stronger one, am I right? Let’s go now, we’ve been wasting time,” the little man kept insisting.
“Well, there is no bus at this hour either…”
“What I mean is the place where that happened, man. The spot where the cow was killed,” said Boyan making his intention clear.
In early spring the sun sets at about seven, or a quarter past that hour. The group of three included Boyan, Stoyan and Uncle Kotze, who was quick to pass over his tavern duties to his wife, and having shouldered his long unused 16 calibre “PUREDAY”hunting rifle, tapped Boyan friendly, saying:
“We’d better be going for there are no more than four hours left till sunset.”
When they arrived at the spot of the clash, Boyan signalled them to stop while he himself took to investigating the tracks. The bear had not come back to its prey but the foxes had feasted on it. The trail of a wolf was well visible on the soft soil; it had cautiously inspected the carcass without eating it. The hunter broke a piece of wood and put it on a clear bear footprint of a hind paw. He broke off a piece of the wood, exactly the length of the footprint, and put it in his inside pocket.
In three hours, the group had inspected three of the places where the pursued animal had been spotted. Equipped with a topographic map and a compass, Boyan meticulously kept marking with a pencil , putting little crosses on the map and writing down various things in his notebook. Whenever we would come across a bear track, he would produce the tiny piece of wood, measuring the bear foot, out of his pocket and would start comparing it with the track. All the tracks belonged to one and the same animal.
It was beginning to get dark so the group headed for the village.
“Was it with this rifle that your father fired at the bear, Stoyan?”
“No, it was another one, we’d borrowed it from our neighbour.”
“Take me to his place first then.”
The neighbour was at home and after the usual exchange of greetings the Wanderer, as the peasants had already named him, asked:
“What sort of bullets had this 12-calibre one been loaded with?”
The peasant thought for a while and answered:
”I’m not certain, to tell you the truth. But, wait I’ll check it. We here shoot only hogs and hares that’s why I have two separate boxes.”
The man left, went somewhere, but came back at soon carrying two boxes with him. After counting and dividing the remaining bullets into two groups, Boyan came to the conlusion that two of the “hare”type were missing.
“It would have been a good hunt I bet! Luckily, you’d taken your axe with you, Stoyan.” said Boyan pursing his lips in reproach.
The neighbour bent his head guiltily and muttered some words of apology.
…..
Boyan was given a small, cosily furnished room to sleep, right above the tavern.
He had an early supper and went home leaving the peasants expecting him, most disappointed.
Upstairs, being alone already, he started inspecting the map. The x-es on it were not too far from each other. The assaults marked were forming a region irregular in its shape, where, or near which, he expected the bear to have hidden. Most likely, the heavy axe wound on its shoulder had deprived it of the opportunity to use, temporarily, one of its paws , so the perimetre of its movements had been restricted to a location round its last shelter.
Gliding his glance time and again over the vegetation relief of the region, as successfully as the map would allow, the hunter built up a theory about the optimal surroundings the bear would have chosen for its hiding place. Judging by the tracks it had left on the ground, by the height of the damages done and by Stoyan’s inconsistent story, the Wanderer came to the conclusion that, most probably, that had been a male specimen, whose foot length measured 26 cm and which weighed about 260-280 kg. In general, it was an adult one, gifted with experience and craftiness, characteristic of bears worthiest representatives.
Early next morning, when it was still dark, the Wanderer, pulled out of his rucksack a folding poly/ полиспасен лък/ bow and half a dozen of arrows, with edge-sharp tripple-tips, and checked them carefully. Having finished, he started putting carefully his hunting clothes on, donning on top a self-made camouflage chain-mail, completely imitating part of a wood. He buckled a war-belt over it, hanging on which were a long, heavy hunting knife, a 5-metre folded piece of rope, a compact searchlight, and a canteen of water. Finally, Boyan tucked a piece of chocolate in his pocket and throwing a last glance at his equipment, headed downstairs for the tavern. He was stepping carefully on the creaking stairs, for fear he might awake Uncle Kotze, but when he came down the host had been already waiting for him. When Boyan appeared fully accoutred, the tavern-keeper gazed in amazement when seeing the totally transformed insignificant man of yesterday who had turned into today’s mystical wood spirit. Uncle Kotze disguised his astonishment with a question:
“Will you have some coffee? It’s ready now.”
It was for the first time since yesterday that Boyan smiled under the camouflaging wax, with which he had covered his face, his white teeth glistening.
“Go ahead, with some more sugar.”
The strong impression the Wanderer made, resulted in respect so the tavern-keeper felt uneasy to ask him if the bow was appropriate enough for the hunt of such an extremely dangerous beast, in spite of the fact that, probably, it was the last word in technology.
While the two of them were having their coffee, Boyan produced the map and pointed in question to one particular spot on it. With some difficulty, the tavern-keeper found orientation and said:
“This is a steep, rocky place. It’s overgrown with low shrubbery and high, sparse trees. There are lots of fallen trunks and old stumps but nobody goes wood gathering there. It’s been since five gypsy mules got killed down the gulch last year that nobody has even approacheed the damned cliffs. Its name is also an odd one, they call it Crumble Hill.”Uncle Kotze finished his history-tourist guide outpouring.
“There is water in the gulch, isn’t there?”, Boyan took some interest.
“There is a little spring too, but it hasn’t been marked on your map.” Uncle Kotze informed complacently.
“You won’t be cross with me if I go there by myself, I hope.”said Boyan and without waiting for an answer, stood up, took his bow with the arrows and went out silent and quick.
……
Day had broken already when the Wanderer came close to the spot he had marked. He’d been walking silently all the time but now his senses were extremely tense. The soft soles of his high boots were feeling the soil under his feet and he stepped only when sure he wouldn’t produce any noise. The bow was resting in his left hand, ready with an arrow on the bow-string. His right hand, which had been clearing the way, removing branches, was ready to stretch the bow-string, as it had done thousands of times during exercise or hunt. There were traces of bear teeth across a dry piece of wood. Judging by its height, the hunter was able to fix the bear’s length, about two and a half meters, which meant that the animal was quite big but not exceptional. It was clear that the guess he had made the night before, had proved right because he came across some dung of the previous day. The hunters strong intuition showed he had spotted the right place. Very carefully, he went on with his inspection and, finally, found out the small spring Uncle Kotze had mentioned. The mud around clearly revealed the tracks of the local inhabitant. Boyan took out the piece of stick again and comapred it to a well imprinted hind paw. The track was the same.
There was a well trodden path leading from the spring to the densest part of the wood and the overgrown steep slope. While he was moving he would often use his right hand to hold onto the tree stems. He wouldn’t like to be in the same position should the bear appear because, in that case, it would be impossible to use his right hand and stretch the bow-string. The climax of the situation came when he sensed the strong smell of an animal feeding on meat. He had to be quick and find some solid support for both his feet. He managed to gain a foothold on a flat rock.
There was no noise, the wood was quiet and peaceful. The hunter waited for some minutes but nothing changed in that surrounding. After taking a good look around he came to the conclusion that the beast’s lair must be very close by. He was aware that the way leading to it should be in the same direction he had come from. The other option was the deep, steep precipice in his feet. Now the area carrying his smell would warn the animal of the presence of an unexpected guest. He had to find a place on the path he had not passed through, clear of his footprints and smell.
He quickly made a decision to move towards the spring and take position up one of the high trees. The height would provide safety and he would have a better chance for watch and shooting. He found a tree and climbed it up.The end of the five metre rope, hanging from his belt, stretched down, under the weight of the bow and arrows, tied to the opposite end.
The Wanderer started setting up his waiting place in absolute silence so that he would be able to pull the bow up when time came. Inspite of his effort to remain noiseless, some branches cracked while he was clearing space for a shooting slot. He started pulling up the rope carefully but, unfortunately, the bow got entangled in the shrubbery below. The hunter tried to unhook it but the bush shook and produced some noise.
Right then there popped out the silhouette of the old, meat-eating bear. With an unexpected for its size nimbleness it made a few quick leaps which took it right into the bush. At a lightening speed the bear, using its healthy paw, hit the bow and all arrows in the holder, with the exception of one only, scattered around while falling down .The blow freed the weapon entangled in the bush. Boyan pulled it up quickly, put the only arrow left in the quiver, attached to the weapon,and stretched the bow. Up to that moment the beast had not spotted the man up the tree but now after seeing him, it produced a short roar which made one’s blood run cold. A second before Boyan’s hand had freed the bow-string for its short song, the eyes of beast and man met. At this only moment millions of years of history merged in one victorious feeling of the first ever human being who killed a bear with a bow and took the lead of his kind making it domineering over the rest of animals irrespective of their might or senses. When the huntsman went hunting for the first time and felt the excitement of being victorious, it was obviously then that the atavistic aspiration for new and new victories was encoded in human genes.
The arrow swished. Its tip sinking inside the soft tissue, piercing without any difficulty one of the ribs, cutting in three directions all it had passed through and gliding only a few milimetres from the heart , affecting the lower section of the lung. The huge torso of the meat-eating beast shrank convulsively. It tried to bite at the arrow with its teeth.
The next moment the big bear attacked fiercly its enemy. Boyan stepped on the branch he had been sitting on at the time of the shot making an effort to climb further up. The first attack of the animal failed but it came back again, reaching farther up this time. The hunter knew he couldn’t expect any mercy so fear had not grasped him yet. His only weapon, available at the moment, was the long hunting knife. He climbed quickly further up and tied one feet to a thick bough. Then waited till the bear came close enough and jumped over it, dealing a blow with the knife in the neck of the climbing animal. The blade hit the muscles, sinking easily, but did not kill the bear immediately. It, on its own part, gave out a roar and collapsed to the ground. Then, suddenly rose to its feet again, and tried to climb up but the bleeding of its lung was showing its effect already. Boyan was watching the dying bear from above, its roar weakening and becoming fainter, until it disappeared altogether and the bear passed away. It was only then that the hunter untied his foot from the tree and climbed down.He was certain that his enemy was dead but, to make sure, he touched with the blade of his knife its eye. It didn’t react.
He managed to enter the village early that afternoon and didn’t call anybody but the tavern-keeper, Stoyan and his father, telling them to get ready and prepare some ropes and two mules. Then the four of them headed for the spring. When they arrived to the spot, the peasants couldn’t believe their eyes that the bear had been killed. At first, they were even afraid to go closer to it. It needed great effort and hard work to load the heavy animal on the improvised Indian sledge, pulled by the two mules. That’s the way the beast from Crumble Hill came into the village, where, God knows how, the entire population had been informed and was waiting standing as if expecting a parade.
The people, who had finally got rid of their fear, surrounded Boyan reverently, veryone asking how they were to thank him and pay off.
“You owe me nothing. It all happened accidentally. I’d be thankful if you gave me just a shepherd crook to remember your village.”Boyan told them.
“Don’t be ridiculous man, we’re going to slaughter a whole ram in your honour!” Uncle Kotze said excitedly.
“Oh,no! I won’t hear of it! There’s a long way for me to go. I’ve promised my folks te get home before dark.” Boyan firmly declined the invitation and started saying
his good-byes to the people around.
“Listen boy, take this crook, it used to be my grand pa’s….C’mon, take it and be happy!” Pavel gave him the wooden stick with a twisted end, polished from too much use over the years.
…..
Boyan was home in time to welcome later his guests, who had come on the occasion of his birthday. One of the visitors that evening, started telling interesting stories at the table, all about hunting, with himself in the main part. He was in the focus of attention for everybody present and was beginning to show off too much, so Boyan got fed up with him. He rose from the arm-chair and, as he was going out of the room he, involuntarily, pushed the twenty four shepherd’s crooks arranged behind him, his hunting bow among them.
“Listen man, Boyan , don’t tell me you are a hunter yourself.” The story-teller tried to pull his leg.
The host looked at him and answered with a light, mysterious smile:
“Well, it happens,sometimes, to fire a shot but I can’t say I’m as good as you in the job”
“How long have you had a hunting-license, buddy?” wondered the man, who had been Boyan’s colleague for a long time but had not known of his mysterious addiction.
“I have no license, nor have I a rifle.” calmed him down Boyan and after having rearranged his shepherd crooks, went out to the hall to bring the twenty fifth one, the one he’d been given after the last bear-hunt in Crumble Hill.

THE END

ROBERT ATANASSOV