Milan Novak arrives at the hospital at the tail-end of a long caravan of wounded soldiers returning from the Russian front. They’re a ruinous, weary, self-defeated army, and if a man didn’t know them as the victors, he might think they’d beaten a hasty retreat in front of a swarm of Don Cossacks like Napoleon’s Grand Army fleeing Moscow. They come in on old weather-worn trucks covered in dried, caked on mud so thick it has to be kicked at repeatedly to break it. The wounded lay on empty ammunition carts and supply wagons, while those still able to, stagger in on foot. There’s an endless line that snakes along the road, losing little pieces of itself along the way like a snake peeling its skin, as men leave to rejoin their families—deserters and stragglers alike—as the one hundred thousand of them dwindle down to thousands, and finally hundreds.
They leave the roads behind them covered with the detritus of a defeated army, and more dead men than they can count: soldiers who sit to rest for a moment are unable to continue because of wounds that are infected and festering; lone pack animals worn down by the harsh conditions die on the side of the road; broken down vehicles die from a lack of fuel, or axles that snap like horses' legs in the large ruts and potholes in the muddy countryside--abandoned and left to die of exposure simply because there’s no one left who knows how to fix them. There are cannons and guns, and ammunition, lying along the side of the roads they’ve traveled.
They each have bewildered looks about them; the look of a man standing at the edge of the world and staring down into the blackness of the abyss like a man standing on the brink of forever; a man facing death and unable to come away from it in one piece, each man taking something back with him that will haunt him in his dreams as he sleeps, and plague his every waking moment. They have missing arms, and legs, and some have faces that are blown clean off and left with nothing but hideous scars in their place, while men who are blind hold on to the shoulder of the man beside him, or the man in front of him, and others stand mute, having been deafened by the endless roar of the big guns. As they approach their homes and near their final destinations--their only reason for having endured the endless miles of Hell--they are met by another adversary that is silent, and mysterious, worse than the gas, or the shells, or the Cossack soldiers. It doesn't come from the man-made weapons, or the botched plans of generals in the smoke-filled back rooms in London and Paris, but from the Hand of God.
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George takes to hunting with the same cautious approach he takes to everything else he does. He carries the rifle, a compass, and a backpack. He has everything he needs in it: a large knife--which he usually wears tucked into his right boot--extra rounds of ammunition, dry clothes, a small first-aid kit, with enough food and water to last him the day, as well as four cigarettes. He leaves early, with the sun a pale disc behind vaporous clouds, and the cold air biting into him, urging him to walk faster. The grass is wet, and the dew drops sparkle like tiny diamonds on the ends of the tree branches; the air smells sweet, alive with the sound of birds. His breath smokes around him while the shadows melt through the trees, and he looks at the ground for the fresh scent of small game.
He tells himself he'll check the traps first, but lately they have been empty. His search takes him miles out of the way. One day he has to go North, the next day he goes South, and though he always tries to keep the road in view, he never uses it. He sees soldiers once in a while, and when he does, he dissolves into the trees, becoming one of the shadows. He knows they pose no danger to him as long as they do not see him, but he’s not taking any chances. He has no way of knowing if they’re a part of the army, or part of the army of deserters infecting the woods. He tells himself it’s only a matter of time before one of the little groups stumbles across the villa, and when that happens, he tells himself he’ll be ready. He’s seen enough evidence over the years to know them--burned out farmsteads and butchered livestock; dead farmers, their wives raped--and he thinks about what happened to Anastasia, telling himself he won’t let that happen again.
He keeps to the high ground--even though the going is harder and he sometimes loses sight of the road--because he knows that’s where the game is. He sees a rabbit, and birds--a duck and a goose--but he can’t get a clear shot at them. He’s not a man to waste a shot on something he knows is not a sure thing. It helps to be practical. He sees a small deer, and wild pigs, but lets them go because the idea of skinning, gutting and cutting up a carcass that large, and packing it back to the villa, seems like a daunting task for a one armed man. And then he steps over a branch, or a rotten tree trunk, and a sharp pain stabs him in the back, reminding him to be more cautious.
He eats and drinks sparingly, eating his first sandwiches at ten o'clock--washing them down with a cup of water--and eating an apple after. He pulls a cigarette out of the bag and straightens it, lighting it with a match. The countryside seems to open up in front of him. The tree line goes up higher, and he finds himself looking down on a small valley where a stream sputters through the rocks, and waterfalls roar in the distance. He’s been up this way a number of times before, and thinks he can smell smoke coming from somewhere far off. The smoke isn’t as heavy as it was earlier, but it’s still there. He keeps searching the skyline for a hint of fire--anything to tell him he’s not imagining it--thinking if there’s another hunter in the area he might be mistaken for an animal and shot.
He sees it in the distance. He is amazed at how he has never seen it before, but there it is. A small cabin built into the side of a hill--shaped into it, actually--beside a stream carving its length through the side of the hill. A rolled up piece of sod covers the door, and he knows when it’s down it’s impossible to see the entranceway. He can see it now though, because it’s rolled up and the door’s wide open. There’s a chicken scratching in front of the doorway, and he sees a dead dog laying off to the side.
He makes his way down the hill carefully, circling the small hut and coming up on it from the south. He looks at the dog, and something tells him to have his rifle ready. He reaches down to touch the knife in his boot even though he can feel it there, and creeps along the side of the hut, pausing. He can hear voices inside--laughter, crying, and screaming--and he feels his heart quicken. He takes a deep breath, unslings his rifle and pulls back the bolt, stepping in through the door and taking in the scene with a single glance.
Two soldiers are holding an old woman down on a small wooden table. She’s naked, screaming, and thrashing about wildly--her ragged clothes are torn and laying in a heap on the floor, cut from her body. The first man is standing between her thighs with his pants around his ankles, the old woman's legs stretched open and his arms wrapped around them. The second man is holding her arms stretched over her head, laughing at her, taunting her as the first man pistons himself into her.
She sees George at the same instant the man holding her spindly arms does, and her eyes grow wide in disbelief. George does not know if it is horror he sees in her eyes--perhaps thinking he’s yet another one of her unknown rapists--or relief in knowing her prayers have been answered. The man holding her hands lets her go and reaches for the rifle leaning against the mud wall. George fires. The other man turns around, the roar of the rifle deafening within the small confines of the hovel. The old woman reaches up with her hands and claws at the man's face, her nails raking three long lines of blood. George turns on the man and pulls back the bolt of the rifle without a second thought, firing again. There’s another explosion and the man falls to the dirt floor, agonizing as he dies, gasping blood. George pulls the bolt back one more time, then slings his rifle off his shoulder and places it beside the door.
The old woman sits up, trying to cover her nakedness, looking at the man on the floor, and spits at him. She starts kicking at him in frustration, with thrashing thrusts of her tiny feet. She bends down to pick up her clothes, but falls to the floor, clutching her ripped clothing to her. She scrambles away from the first dead man, seeing the hole in his head, the blood, the horror, and looks at the other man at the foot of the table gurgling blood and trying to pull his pants up. She starts to panic. Her eyes grow large. Her hands start shaking and she begins scratching at her face.
The man's eyes open with a flutter. The dim look of death waits in them, hovering in the distance.
He coughs.
George bends down to help her up, but she shrugs him off quickly, angrily, her tears coming harder as she fights off his touch--her breath coming out in shortened gasps. George bends down and grabs her by the shoulders. He picks her up roughly, dragging her out of the hovel, away from the bodies, and she fights him every inch of the way as he scrambles to take off his backpack. He takes his coat off at the same time, covering her with it. He sees a wooden bucket and runs to get it. He knows he can’t do much for her, but he can take some of the dirt and pain away.
She screams louder.
He picks up the bucket and runs to the stream, breathing in the fresh air and leaning against the side of the dirt house. He’s taking in huge gulps of air and panting heavily. He pushes himself off the wall and runs to the small stream, stumbling as he feels a piercing stab in his back, and falls to his knees. He crawls the remaining few feet to the stream, dipping the bucket in.
There’s a movement out of the corner of his eye. He sees the old woman scurry toward his rifle. She presses the rifle to her chin and pulls the trigger. He watches the birds in the trees around the valley take flight, screaming as the echo of the shot rings out.
She's come up with her own idea of what has to be done for her, George thinks as he turns away from the gruesome sight.
He buries her near the stream, and pulls the two men outside, leaving their bodies exposed downstream. He re-enters the hovel and looks at the dark surroundings. He sees two goats and a cow in the darkness, three chickens scratching at the mud floor, as the last withering embers of the fire choke out a thin blue haze of smoke--the smoke he first detected on the hill. He finds an old sack and takes everything of value he can: salt, sugar, eggs, dried pork and mutton, yeast, flour, butter, and he finds a second bag full of feed. When he’s done, he ties the two bags together and places them over the cow's neck so they lay on either side of the beast. He finds more sacks and kicks the door closed, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dull blackness. He picks the two chickens up and ties them in the sacks. He kills the other one with a quick twist of its neck and hangs it behind the food sacks. He ties a line to the goats, and secures them to the cow before he closes the door, rolls down the sodden flap, and walks home.
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