the road and then angle southward toward Sobolonye, but the tiger had
other plans. He appeared to be heading northwest, following a steep, tight
ravine up into the thickly wooded hill country. There was a lot of Korean
pine up there, which meant a strong likelihood of wild boar, but there
were hunters’ cabins up there, too. In any case, the tiger did not travel in
a linear fashion and nor did he choose paths that a man or horse would, so
his pursuers found themselves weaving through the forest, plowing
through underbrush and scrambling over deadfall and rock. Often,
Burukhin’s horse would be forced back and have to find another route. By
the end of that exhausting first day, it would be clear that there was no
place for a horse on this hunt.
The sun was well on its way down by the time the five men approached
the head of a little stream the locals called Third Creek, and it was up
there, about three miles northwest of Sobolonye, that the tiger’s tracks
began to trend southward toward the village. With the light failing, the
men noted their position, checked the tracks one last time, and headed
back the way they had come. All around them were low tree-covered
mountains about 2,500 feet high. From the right angle, backlit by the sun,
one could see through the forest to the stark outlines of the mountains
themselves, the trees standing out on the ridges like stubble on a scalp.
As the sun fell beyond the treetops, the upper branches seemed to gather
mass, coming into high relief like the leading in a stained glass window.
Briefly, the slivered voids between were lit in church glass shades of
vermilion and purple, soon deepening to indigo and black.
The tracking team arrived back at the Kung after dark having covered,
all told, only around ten miles. Still, they were beat. “After following his
tracks for a day, we were getting a picture,” said Trush. “It was easy to
see what the tiger was doing. He was hungry, and he was hunting
Manchurian deer and roe deer. The tracks showed where he had pounced
at them, but failed to catch them.”
“I wouldn’t say that he was weak,” said Pionka. “His wound was not
serious. It was difficult for him to lift that leg, but he wasn’t going to die
because of the injury. He didn’t seek out the easiest routes, and he didn’t
lie down that often.”
ron
(Ron)
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