by Giang Kieu
Old U was an excellent hunter. Apart from his regular trekking through the jungle, he was also well-known as a man unmatched for his doggedness and deceptive tricks. Once he made up his mind to do something, he would do it at any cost. Over several decades as a hunter, a myriad of stories had been created about him, and nobody could tell which stories were false and which were true.
It was rumoured that he had a very sensitive nose, more sensitive than a dog's. Even several dozen metres away, it was said, he was able to tell the difference between a man and a woman by their scent, and who was a stranger and who was an acquaintance. It was said, he could imitate the yell or falsify the smell of animals in heat in order to lure a wild cat or pig into a trap. In his leisure time, it was also said that he often enjoyed a windfall of profits by playing games of chance.
One day, a band of hunters on the other side of Da Lon Mountain shot a deer and her fawn, but the shot wasn't fatal and the prey ran away, leaving a trail of blood that disappeared at the top of the ridge. The next morning on his side of the mountain, old U caught sight of the animals along the banks of the Cai Stream. The mother deer had lost her strength when they came to the stream and had hidden in the bushes with her fawn, who was still drinking her milk. Having seen him, the mother deer was trying to pick itself up to run away, but the old man quickly shot her. As she died, the deer looked at the old man with eyes full of pain. The fawn held an air of wonderment, as if questioning how he could do such a thing. It stood motionless, gazing at its mother. In the end, the old man took both.
A few days later, the hunters from the other side of the mountain came and demanded the deer back from the old man.
"Piss off! Why the hell do you think the deer is yours? I spent almost a full day hunting it. So stop talking rubbish!"
Day in and day out, the old man loitered on the pavements, in shops and market places to hear information about the appearance of certain animals in the forest. When he heard something interesting, he grabbed his gun and went hunting. He never returned home without a kill in his hands. But wild animals had become ever scarcer in the forest. He would not be able sustain himself by hunting for much longer. Would he have to change jobs? No, he did not want to do field work. He could chase animals over the mountain range all day, but hoeing and raking the rice field was not an option for him. When he would hear people mention things about bumper crops of beans or maize just to insinuate that he was a lazy bones, he would fly off the handle:
"You'll never know who is better!"
From then on his life became ever harder. His wife, a woman of a few words by nature, had now become a mere shadow in the house, saying almost nothing. His son Ang had dropped out of school and was almost never seen at home. He loafed around freely. Old U knew that his son wanted to go to school very much, but he often admonished his son in a high tone:
"You know, anything you learned would not be equal to a bag of tiger bones! Your higher education cannot be compared to a bag of monkey bones!"
His heart and mind had always been somewhere on the mountain peaks, his thoughts veering toward images of tigers or bulls that could provide him with half a billion dong worth of bones. He strongly believed that somewhere on Dong Phu Peak, shrouded by fog year round, there were still tigers waiting for him.
That dry season, the whole village was shocked to see old U and his clan move to a new place along the newly-opened trans-Indochina road. He chose this area because of its proximity to the Dong Phu Peak; It was only two day journey along a jungle trail to the peak from his new place. He and his wife built a shanty right at the foot of the Thi Slope. Where there used to be a hundred kilometers of deserted road, there was now a corrugated iron roofed house with tyres hung out front, a new surprise for travelers. The shanty was used as both a place to live and a tyre repair shop.
To be honest, he knew nothing about mending a punctured tyre or an inner tube. But he did his best by accepting damaged tyres from customers, using a crowbar and a monkey-wrench for the repairs. As far as the money paid to him was concerned, he cared nothing about it. Any amount of money paid would do. If people did not have enough money, they would try to leave him some oil or a kilo of grease as payment, or give him packages of instant noodles or cans of meat, but he refused them all. He did the repair work just to give himself a cover in the eyes of the rangers and people around, so that they would not forbid the shanty to stay in the forbidden forest area.
He was nurturing a great ambition.
Early each morning, together with Ang, he made rice dumplings for his hunting spree in the forest. His aim was to pass the love of the hunt on to his son. He taught Ang how to identify the footprints of wild animals and to determine the time animals would pass by a certain place so that he could place a trap. On the way home in the afternoons, he always carried some type of game to sell in the market. Sometimes, when they wanted to go deeper into the forest, they would sleep there without any fear.
After more than two months of searching this side of Dong Phu Peak, one midday he felt an electric shock pass through him when he saw and touched the foot prints of a tiger in a clearing by the edge of the forest. He embraced his son, shouting with joy:
"My time has come, son!"
Leaving his son at home the next day, old U went into the forest alone. The old hunter had the advantage, as the animal did not know about his presence there; the tiger had controlled the forest for years and wouldn't believe that a new danger could possibly be present. Finally he saw the magnificent animal. It was the tiger of his dreams, big as a bull, three metres in body length, with a mass of white-fur touched with grey bands from head to toe. It looked so amazingly imposing. Holding his breath, the old man worked his way down to the den where he could see the animal feeding a cub. He quickly thought of a trick on the way home: he would catch the cub to use as bait in order to lure its mother.
The next morning, he and his son went into the forest and found a deep abyss near the tiger's den. Three metres from the edge of the abyss was a large rock jutting out. The old man said something to his son then lay in ambush until the mother tiger left the den. He then went into the den and carried away the infant cub. He tied the cub up and put it a sack. When finished, he ran quickly back to the abyss.
He carefully climbed down the cliff and placed the cub on the top of the rock, tying it to the rock on one end and a big tree root on the other. He then poured oil and grease around the edges of the abyss. He even chopped down all the trees around the mouth of the abyss. Finally when all was done, he and his son hid themselves in wait.
As soon as the sun was about to set the tiger appeared, following the footsteps of the cub-napper. Seeing her cub tied to the rock, she stopped in her tracks and yelled out a fierce roar. The tiger ran to and fro but failed to find a way to reach her cub. The tiger helplessly stood there and looked down.
A sharp-witted animal, the mother tiger understood that it was a trap. Risky action was needed, and the cub's cries had rent its mother's heart. She became so wild and mad that it had finally come to the moment when she twisted her tail around a root for support.
Little did she know the root had been intentionally placed there by the old man so that she could stretch her body close to the cub. But she couldn't reach. They reached for each other in great joy and the mother tiger shed tears for her cub. Unfortunately for the animals, their weight uprooted the tree, sending them both down into the depths of the abyss. The mother tiger roared and roared, shaking the mountain.
They both died on the spot!
Having watched from the slope of the abyss, old U and his son heard the roars of the falling tigers. Wild animal traders had arranged a deal with the old man. He was paid VND 400 million to flay the tigers, peel off the meat and carefully pick the bones. The bones would be cooked down to make tiger bone jelly.
By the forest stream, they cooked the tiger bones for several days and nights. On the seventh day the man in charge began to stoke the fire and said to Ang:
"I'm very sleepy! Watch the jelly for me. Mind you stir it all the time, because it will be poured into cakes, you know!"
Having heard that tiger bone jelly was valued at more than half a billion dong, the boy stealthily scooped a ladleful for himself, thinking that it would value at over ten million dong. He quickly hid the stolen jelly, even though it gave off a powerful smell.
For days afterward the old man was overjoyed. He appeared to be over the moon. He drank for pleasure, his wife bought a new gas cooker and his son bought a lot of new clothes. His family was very materially happy.
About one month later, Ang was nervous and inflamed, as if he were being burned by fire. Whenever he dozed off, he immediately dreamed of falling down a hill and could see that white tiger in the abyss. After getting up one morning, he felt an ache over his entire body, as if millions of insects were crawling inside his bones, and like his skin was being cracked. Yellow pus was oozing out of him, giving out a bad smell. He could not stand for any clothes to touch his body. His mother had to tend him day and night, feed him with rice soup and give him medicine. She prayed in silence to God that her husband and son would be pardoned, as she believed that the white tiger was asking for their lives in return for the loss of hers and her cub's. Very afraid, she told her husband her thoughts. Hearing it, her husband yelled: "I dare it! I dare it, the tiger!". Then he took a cleaver and chopped at the house pillars, again sunk in an alcohol stupor. He woke up upon hearing his wife's cries: "Where's my son? Where's my son?"
He quickly got up and ran for his life to the abyss. Somehow he knew his son was heading there. He knew he had guessed correctly when he saw the pair of Ang's new sandals lying at the edge of the abyss. He took the familiar trail down the abyss and as soon as he reached the bottom, he accidentally kicked his son's naked body. His son was lying there, as if he was sleeping, with both hands crossed over his chest and both eyes filled with blood. His was dead!
With great hurt, he roared:
"Ang! Ang!"
His scream echoed against the cliff, the same as the white tiger's roar did on that fateful day.
Since that day, lorry drivers passing by Thi Slope always saw the old man, a weird figure in tattered clothes, appear and then disappear into the forest like a ghost, always moaning with sorrow: A uom! A uom!
(from Viet Nam News)
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