Free 1/2986 by Annelie Wendeberg Page B

and shoot. We have to walk up to it to see that bark has chipped off where the pellet hit.
    ‘Hmm.’ I try to not sound too appreciative about the weapon’s aim and reach. Runner doesn’t comment. Looking down at his shirt I’m wearing, I say, ‘Too white to hunt.’ I fetch my dark rain jacket, pull it over me, and ask him for more pellets.  
    With a grin, he places only one into my palm. If I need more than two, I shouldn’t be hunting.

    ———

    I sit in a beech at the edge of the forest. Several narrow trails criss-cross through the grass, entering the woods where a mighty tree lies on the ground, covered by moss and a few marten droppings. I can smell them all the way up to my branch.
    My feet are bare, pressing against the smooth bark. My back is nestled against the trunk. The rifle is pinned underneath my right arm, my eyes trained into the distance, focussing on nothing in particular. My ears, though, are wide open, mapping locations of the occupants of the woods behind me and in the meadow before me. A pair of tawny owls must be nesting half a kilometre to my right. I see them swooping in and out of the trees, calling their high-pitched song as soon as they settle on a branch.
    The meadow ahead is buzzing with crickets. No rabbits so far, but they’re small and will be hard to spot. Three deer tiptoe through the vegetation. I watch the animals bend their slender necks, their snouts kiss the grass.
    Two dark-tipped ears peek over the vegetation, wiggle, and hide again. A hare, maybe?
    A nightingale begins to blare in a shrub beneath me. Its song seems to work like a calming call to everyone. All is good. No danger. The hare takes a hop and I take aim just beneath its shoulder blade. Click.
    The animal somersaults, kicks and kicks, until it finally falls still. The deer prick their slender ears, stick their noses higher up in the wind, but find nothing suspicious. The nightingale begins its crescendo.
    I strap the rifle on my back, wrap my arms around the branch I sat on, and swing down. The soft noise silences the nightingale. The deer dart into the woods.
    I walk up to the hare and pick it up. Just when I turn to walk back to the reservoir, I spot a set of gleaming eyes fixed on me.  
    On the fallen tree, soft paws on soft moss, stands a lynx.  
    I feel how my cursing blood warms my skin, but it’s not caused by fear. It’s caused by a wild desire to watch the cat move silently, the wish that it would stay a minute and allow me to take in all its features, the pointy ears with the narrow black brushes of hair sticking up. The eyes, sometimes yellow, sometimes green, but never clearly defined. The markings in its face, like those of a warrior.  
    When the cat begins to move, it’s not retreating. It’s approaching. And that is when fear finally creeps in.
    Ears folded flat, hackles rising, and throat hissing, the lynx creeps forward. I don’t think it could kill me — it’s not large enough — but it can certainly injure me. Those incisors look rather long and pointy when I imagine them cutting through my neck.
    The cat jumps off the tree trunk and I take a step back. It stares at me and then at the hare. And finally, I understand. I’ve stolen its dinner.
    I don’t know precisely what gets into me when I hold the hare out instead of throwing it the two metres to the lynx. Curiosity, maybe. I have a bit too much of that, I guess.
    Light-grey paws are set in motion and I can see a slight limp in its right hind leg. When the cat steps out into the pale moonlight, it shows ragged fur, and underneath, ribs grinding against skin.
    I wonder if I should go down on my knees to appear less threatening, but decide against it, as this will also make me look more edible. Instead, I stretch out my arm as far as it can go, the hare suspended on its ears, feet touching the ground.  
    Without taking its eyes off me, the lynx lunges, closes its jaws around my kill, and disappears between the trees.
    I touch