Such a beautiful animal – completely oblivious to the fact that someone was looking at him through a telescopic sight.
Gunilla had a free shot. It was as if everything were set up for her first trophy, proof that she deserved to be a member of the hunting association. A splendid buck, beautiful and majestic, and completely at her mercy. Well, her weapon’s. It was a Tikka T3 that the hunting store assistant had picked out for her while she had pretended to be interested in the differences between all the guns: sporting rifle, side by side, over and under, drilling. They all had different characteristics, but they shared a common purpose. To kill.
She could taste coffee in her mouth – it was seemingly an important part of hunting. The same thing applied to grilled hot dogs. Hot dogs, kabanos and slices of falukorv – the hunters’ looks of pleasure as they chewed their way through their almost meat-free offal. Did it really taste good? Half the sausage burned, half still cold? But it was part of it.
Part of the hunt.
Which she was now taking part in.
Taking a life. Preferably several lives. Every death a victory. Why? For the camaraderie? For the adrenaline kick? To keep roe deer numbers down, so they said. A pretty shaky argument, to say the least.
Didn’t the blokes who did this ever suffer from a guilty conscience? These men who had smirked and commented on her presence on the training range and had changed the subject when Gunilla had started nagging to join the hunt. The ones with their walls at home covered in animal horns mounted onto plaques, with gun cabinets filled with rifles worth tens of thousands of kronor. Some, hundreds of thousands. Men who didn’t seem to come to life until they put on khakis and fiery yellow weapon slings. As if it were finally their opportunity to be themselves. Or the men they dreamed of being. Maybe it was like drag show performers, finally putting on their sequined dresses and having their moment to mime a song under the spotlights? A transformation number, in protest at what they had been born as? There were no slightly chubby second-raters here, just skilled hunters, warriors, bringers of death – the very survival of our entire species depending on them.
Why had she done this herself? Toiling through the courses to get her hunting licence, serving as a beater for several seasons while constantly nagging to join the hunt. Was it to get to know her husband? To try and understand why he loved hunting so much? To find a common interest?
Or was it for the sake of equality? To shake up one of the most male-dominated strongholds in all of Sweden?
Perhaps.
But she hadn’t shaken up a thing.
All she had done was give the blokes something to joke about, laugh at. She had most definitely increased their sense of belonging. She had possibly gone as far as embarrassing her husband, but if that was the case then he was concealing it under a layer of indulgent joking. At any rate, he had agreed to give up his spot for her and was now serving as a beater instead – a voluntary downgrade which had been a long time coming, despite being very temporary in nature.
A doe and a kid joined the buck. She had learned that they were called that. Doe and kid, rather than being a she deer and a baby deer. In this regard, as in all others, the correct terminology was essential – small codes that proved whether you were on the inside or not. A bit like wearing the right brand of jeans in high school.
You never shot the doe first, to ensure that the kid wasn’t left motherless. An absurd degree of consideration in the midst of a brutal ritual. We’ll shoot your child first so that it isn’t left all alone. Aren’t we kind?
Slowly but surely, her index finger began to squeeze the trigger. The buck was in the middle of her sight. His final seconds with his family . . . But that was nature for you – or so she persuaded herself. Humans weren’t the only animal who killed other animals. But they were the only animal that was capable of doing it from a distance like this. Distanced. Impersonal. Cowardly.
The shot rang out. The three beautiful animals ran, vanishing as if by magic. Trained by evolution to move at lightning pace at the first sign of danger.
The shot caught a tree trunk right by the spot where the buck had been standing, just a few inches from its target.
‘Good try,’ said Håkan encouragingly.
‘Close, but no buck,’ Martin said, smirking.
Gunilla didn’t care. It was she who had demanded to take part, it was she who had passed judgment on the buck’s fate. She accepted the others’ comments and had no intention of offering any explanation or pleading for their understanding.
‘I suppose any others that might have been nearby have legged it too,’ said Håkan. ‘Let’s move forward a bit.’
‘It really wasn’t far off,’ said Martin in an attempt at comfort that stung far more than the cackle of mocking laughter.
‘But we also don’t want the animals to end up with gunshot wounds,’ said Håkan. ‘Anyway, perhaps you should do a bit more practice before you take another shot?’
‘Hmm,’ she said, but merely nodded.
They continued onwards, the Lang brothers leading the way and Gunilla trailing a few steps behind them. Elegant Håkan with his Blaser R8 and his Mauritz Widforss khakis, while Martin was there in his old clobber bought twenty years ago at the hunting wholesalers, clutching his Husqvarna 1900 as if it were his firstborn.
They followed the small forest trail, rutted with deep tracks left by motocross bikes. Gunilla couldn’t fathom how anyone could treat nature this way. Not to mention how much it must distress the animals: elk, foxes, deer and their young, birds sitting on their eggs. The pine forest began to thin out to an expansive open area with power lines, a hunting tower and a small road. Kolbotten, Håkan announced, as if Gunilla hadn’t known what it was called.
Parked on a patch of gravel was a big SUV – a Porsche Cayenne from a few years back. The doors were open and two burly men were dragging something from the car up the forested hill, beyond which was Lake Mälaren.
The men were fully occupied with their heaving and hadn’t noticed the hunters as yet. Once the trio were close to the dragging men, Martin thought to himself that the two didn’t look like men to be messed with, and he felt instinctively that it was best to adopt a matey approach. The plates on the car weren’t Swedish either, and Martin felt generally uncertain around foreigners. They were deceptive, hard to interpret. But a smile usually bridged most cultural divisions – that much he knew.
‘Hello there!’ Martin called out cheerfully, whereupon the men started and looked up. ‘Have you seen any deer about?’
Both men dropped their bundle, drew a pistol each and opened fire.
Håkan dropped with a scream, hit in the leg, and Martin instinctively let go of his rifle, turned on his heel and ran.
One of the two men rushed after Martin, while the other took a few steps towards the fallen Håkan.
The man loomed over the bleeding, whimpering hunter as he raised his weapon. A Glock, a shocked Håkan noted. A bloody good gun.
But before the man had time to fire, there was a crack from the treeline and he collapsed across Håkan, blood gushing from a hole in his forehead.
The other man heard the shot, saw his companion fall and turned around, his weapon drawn.
The next second he was hit by a similarly well-aimed shot right in the centre of his forehead.
Not a sound crossed his lips as his body tumbled to the ground.
Håkan, who had been convinced that his end was nigh, shoved the man who had died in his place out of the way and twisted to see who had saved him.
He didn’t know whether he was expecting to see that Martin had returned, or the cops, or some other dodgy types who had been after the duo and were going to do away with all witnesses.
Instead, what he saw was Gunilla, Kalle’s wife, slowly lowering her smoking rifle while fixing her gaze on her first two hunting trophies.