– He was a good man, – the old man said slowly, looking with bleary eyes as if through the time, – he killed the beast professionally, instantly, not giving time to be tormented in vain! – suddenly, angry notes began to sound in his voice. – If you cut open the bear’s belly, from the pain, it begins to reel the guts on the pad, dying in terrible agony! This is not the hunt, but the real wild fanaticism! Death should be quick and easy! – Sergey Petrovich looked at his fellow inquiringly, who nodded as the sign of agreement. – He understood that one didn’t need to be very smart to cut open the bear: one hits and retreats to a safe distance! And one only waits for the beast to tear itself apart! And there is no risk! – He dully waved his hand. – And there is no joy of victory! Low and mean! I already cannot handle a bear without a gun as I have no former strength! Even being young, I was afraid to hunt for bear with a knife! God has not given me courage! The bear-hunter honoured only fair fight and did not tolerate meanness and injustice! He left the beast a chance, which that beast inevitably used one day! He was the winner of the thirty fights with full-grown males, but the thirty-first one was fatal for him! And it happened not because of his oversight or regrettable mistake! He did everything, as usual, according to the old scheme, but it seemed that his luck left him that day! – and, having thought a little, confusedly added: – Or it was some God of bears that heard about the brave hunter and wanted to challenge him! – Sergey Petrovich, like other old men, was superstitious, convinced that even a stone had its forest soul incomprehensible to us. – One could not understand what higher powers interfered but the result was disastrous! The hunter, as usual, raised his hand, making the bear stand up on its hind pads, instinctively threw his cap and rapidly jumped to the roaring beast, ready to strike a fatal blow! And the beast suddenly hugged the man! I guess I do not need to explain to you what it means to be in an iron bear hug! It is like to get hit by a hydraulic press! A split second, and your chest becomes compressed in the bag! And before you know it, you will go on a date with your ancestors! The thing was that the beast did not deign to blink and saw the approaching hunter! The rest was the matter of technique! That’s it! The moral of the story is the following: regardless of your previous experience, sometimes, the situation goes out of your control!

– Yeah! Interesting story! – Mikhail agreed sadly, feeling heavy-hearted. – I also know one hilarious story, told by my friend hunter, when I was buying the license to shoot an elk! So, it was like this! One would-be hunter, – he excitedly leaned forward, gesticulating frantically, – decided to hunt for elk alone! He bought a license and rushed to the exploits! One day – no news! Two days – the same thing! Silence! On the third day, his wife became worried and went to the forestry! They organised a search party and rushed to find him…

– Did they find him? – Sergey Petrovich asked excitedly, ceasing to disassemble the backpack for a moment.

– Sure! It is for urban residents, taiga is Chinese alphabet, and for people like us, it is an open book! But if you know where to look, it is a trifling matter! – The man enthusiastically waved his hands. – And now imagine such a picture! A big birch of three girths and two dead bodies in it: our would-be hunter and an elk pinning him to the tree trunk with its horns! That is where the irony of fate: the hunter and the prey, frozen in the fatal embrace, and now one cannot tell, who is the hunter and who is the victim! There are no winners and no losers! The death made them equal! – he perplexedly lifted his hands in dismay. – I guess the hunter only wounded the beast, and the beast did not flinch and went on the man, hit him with horns, but did not rate its strength and nailed him to the tree! Maybe, he did that on purpose, instinctively feeling the approach of death, decided to take the man too! Nobody knows what happened there, as dead did not tell anything! There are many options, but the end is one! I know only one thing: five hunters barely managed to pull the horns out of the crevice! Now imagine the strength of the elk that hit the man!

– Yeah, what a story! – Sergey Petrovich said dejectedly, lighting a cigarette, and took a deep puff, imagining the tragic scene. – That’s because fate played a cruel trick! They probably did not die immediately and, bleeding out, looked into each other’s eyes with hatred!

– Gleefully waiting to see who will die first! – smiling like a predator, Mikhail agreed. – Maybe, the elk was happy that the enemy died faster, but I think it lasted not too long! Actually, none of them won! Both kicked the bucket!

– Yes, it is wrong! – The old man uttered accusingly in a sad voice. – Two deaths, two crossed out fates!

– Damn them! – Mikhail angrily made the air blue and waved his hand. – I have other things to worry about, I do not want to be concerned at all about them! Who are they to me, relatives or something?! Brothers? Matchmakers? Who?! Nobody! And if they are nobody to me, then there is no need to charge memory with trifles! Yes, there is nothing we can do for them! They cannot be brought back to life! And now they are far away from here, probably, blissfully happy! – He dabbed at the sky with his index finger. – Indulge in every pleasure! And much more important things to do are waiting for us than being upset about someone’s worthless life!

Mikhail had no the slightest idea of mercy, compassion, sympathy. He did not care about a stranger’s fate, he cared more about his own welfare, considering that everyone bore one’s cross. And if someone was destined to die, then so be it, but he had nothing to do with this. The man yanked up and waddled to the nearby mountain stream, through the crystal surface of which one could see the sandy bottom and stones covered with green ooze. Frisky flock of silver bills fearfully recoiled from the human shadow, appearing on the surface, and quickly rushed into the thick branches, bending to the water aspen. The man crouched and, raking the cool spring water with the palm, drank from the spring in plenty. Having quenched his thirst, he rose and, stretching out with a crunch, hesitantly concluded:

– Bad luck follows us, we did not find any bear trace, even the slightest sign of its existence, along the whole way! As if the beast is not here, and have never been here!

– Do not worry, we will find it, and more than one! I noticed this place long ago, during the winter, when I went to set sable traps! I walked around the crevice (it is not far from here) and saw the steam coming from a small vent in the snow! Certainly, it was the bear’s lair in the roots of the fallen cedar. I wanted to kill it at once, but I was afraid that she-bear was with the bear-cub! – The old men perplexedly shrugged. – It would be OK to kill she-bear, but it was a sin to kill the bear-cub too! It was too young to die! I would not take it with me, and to leave it there meant certain death! And in the past, I gave myself a vow not to kill she-bears with bear-cubs! It is obscene to kill the child, let the cub of the animal, in the womb or when it still suckles! It is a great sin! Children are children, they walk on their two or four! For this, God will not pat on the head, but will punish, so you will regret the day you were born! And at my age, God forbid, I have no desire to sin! The nightmares do not give me rest because of the past deeds!

Mikhail sarcastically grinned. But the old hunter, having noticed a sarcastic smile, accusingly shaking his head, strongly objected:

– I know what you have thought. There is no difference, if good riddance! They would grow and suddenly attack you, and you had mercy on them! And you would not have any chance! Being young, I thought the same: kill and have no remorse! But understanding comes with age. You begin to see the world with different eyes! You become more perceptive, trying not to make unforgivable mistakes that will tear you apart in the future! – He sighed, once again withdrawing into himself. – The past can be very vindictive! If it does not hit physically, it will hurt emotionally! Only anguish and bitterness know how much time it takes to heal spiritual wounds! And these wounds still torment me! The past takes it out on me for my carefree youth! I cannot hide from it, even at night, in my dreams! It will find me everywhere and exhaust. – Sergey Petrovich nervously rubbed his sweaty palms. – Every night of the past year, I have the same dream about the doe mortally wounded by me! – He sighed bitterly. – It was the first time I shot from the gun in the hunting field, and it was such a success! I ran up to my first trophy, thinking that my father would be proud of me! She looked at me, and there were real tears in her eyes! Under her body, there was the crashed new-born fawn, flopping in the death struggle! She just laid there and looked in my eyes, and I saw the unbearable sadness in them, not her pain, but the pain of the baby! She tried to stand up, but her legs did not obey and fell down once again! I heard the crunch of bones! The ribs of the fawn broke! In my mind, everything turned out! You will not believe it but I cried with her! I became like a stone! I felt approving pats of my father on the shoulder but I did not hear his words of praise, I only saw her and the dead fawn! My first hunter’s trophy brought me nothing but tormenting acute emotional pain for all the remaining years! I dream to go back in the past and to refrain from the fatal shot! Maybe, guilt would let me go! I am tired of waking up in a cold sweat, tormented by her gaze and spotted side of the fawn in the death struggle! – The old man’s eye glistened and he sadly said: – So, the hunt is not always a joy. Sometimes it brings only the pain! – And he continued in a more calm voice: – So, I decided not to rush things – I waited for the spring to avoid committing follies! – And keeping off the sad memories, he resolutely shook his head. – The past cannot be changed, and one needs to eat something! There is nothing in the shops, so I have to hunt to send gifts for children and grandchildren to the city! We can eat potatoes, as we have our own vegetable garden! They are young, and to grow they need meat! So, if it is a male, as I hope, he will have nowhere to hide!

Sergey Petrovich Silantyev was known as an experienced hunter, with a record of more than one killed the bear, unlike the young fellow, for whom it was the first hunt for bear. Sergey Petrovich took a partner to be safe. The vision was not good anymore, a betraying tremor appeared in his hands, and former strength was gone over the years. Needless to say, he hit his 60s, though, in the presence of others, he still tried to be cheerful and look good. But years… But years were constantly taking their toll. Time did not stand still, and he was getting old irretrievable. He hunched more and more, bending lower and lower to the ground. And now, once thick as pitch hair thinned and was more reminiscent of the dropped powder, and more wrinkles appeared on a sunken face. But there was something positive in his age: seasoned experience, which he reasonably used, came instead of youthful incontinence. Now, he did not allow himself embarrassing gaffes and hasty decisions. The man only worried for the young hunter not to make a mess in the heat of passion, which could lead to their own death. As in any business, one had to surrender to chance and then all the effort would go down the drain. There could be unfortunate misfires, or the beast would approach from the back, and even worse one could meet the brood of the she-bear with two two-year-old bear-cubs, not yet adults but no longer children, and with the height of their mother. There were many options, but the end was one! So, he tried not to think of the future. Everything must take its course. He should not rush things. It’s all in God’s hands. And paternal moralising continued:

– If you know the habits of the animal, success is almost guaranteed! It is known that bears leave their territory only in exceptional cases: a bad year, a wounded animal, in the winter – insomniac bear, or a forest fire! And since taiga was not and is not on fire, and last year, we had a lot of berries and pine nuts – the bear had a lot of fat and slept peacefully all winter! The spring was early and fruitful in wild garlic, so the beast did not have to starve after waking up, and hence there was no need for it to go somewhere and to leave its home! So, now the bear wanders somewhere nearby, and we will meet it!

Wild garlic grew everywhere and resembled the green carpet with a height reaching up to the knees of the person. Mikhail reached out and ripped off the thick stem. He gently cleansed it from the bitter peel, cut leaves and took a bite with a crunch, chewing delicious juicy, salty flesh, resembling the tastes of garlic leaves.

– And there is plenty of omul in the rivers. – He added approvingly, sitting down comfortably on the grass. – During the spawning, I caught them in abundance! I salted a barrel for the winter, sold the rest on the city market and made good money! If it will continue this way, then I will be able to buy a new washing machine in winter, as the old one is at its last gasp! Let’s have a bite? – He suggested suddenly, stroking his rumbling stomach. – I have not had a morsel to eat today!

– It is time! – Sergey Petrovich agreed, promptly pulling out a heavy package with victuals wrapped in foil. – Now, let’s see what we have left!

– The last piece of meat is especially sweet! – Mikhail smiled, pulling out of a side pocket of a backpack a fork and an iron mug.

– Good point! – Sergey Petrovich confirmed, conjuring over lunch. He spread a newspaper and laid out on a makeshift table: bread, two chicken hams, pickles, four eggs, and potatoes in jackets. Looking at the products, he confidently concluded: – Mare yourself at home! Not a lot, but it is enough to lay the stomach for a while! And in the evening, if we are lucky, we will have fresh meat and will eat to heart content! He carefully pulled out of his pocket the camp saltshaker, gently poured a handful of salt on the edge of the newspaper and, without turning, asked his friend: