The
silvery flakes floated gently to the ground, turned to stardust by the light of
the full moon, as they settled on the ground, covering the earth in a soft, yet
unforgiving carpet, the colour of fresh milk. The blackbird swooped down from
her perch on the spruce tree and landed clumsily, as if in pain, atop a small
mound, and began pecking away at the fingers of a small hand, that was yet to
be shrouded by the falling snow.
Viho,
or Viktor, as he was now called by his fellow villagers, stared at the moon
through his window, as he drew hard on his unfiltered cigarette, the harsh
black Russian tobacco irritating the back of his throat and filling his lungs
with fire. Viho was a hunter, descended from a line of wise and fierce Cheyenne
warriors. As a young boy, he was taught tracking and hunting, and the ways of
the soldier by seasoned fighters, fighters who had fought against other tribes,
as well as the paleface, and lived to tell the tale. Shamans, the magic men of
the tribe, recounted tales of animal spirits and the afterlife, and he partook
of age old wisdom with the wide eyed glee of a young boy. He was told of the Harvest
moon, which was the full moon seen
closest to the autumn equinox. The native Americans also had a name for the
full moon that came immediately after the Harvest moon; they called it the
Hunters' moon or the Blood moon. Viho saw a blackbird, perched on a branch of
the silver birch just outside his cottage, silhouetted against the huge Hunters'
moon. It looked like she had something red in her beak.
A
chequered life and the love of a good woman had seen Viho settle in a small
village at the foothill of the Ural mountains, and with his knowledge of the
woods and his skill at hunting, Viho (his name meant "chief" in his
native Cheyenne) had quickly become an indispensable member of the small
community in this remote pocket of the world. He was jerked out of his reverie
as the cigarette burnt his fingers, and he returned to the two issues weighing
on his mind - one communal and the other personal. A huge brown bear was
terrorizing the village, and although Viho had set up bear traps at quite a few
places, the bear had managed to elude them all. Also, his son was missing. All
thoughts of the bear had been driven from his mind, as he had searched far and
wide for his son, but he was nowhere to be found. He was an ill-tempered boy,
always quick to anger, treating man and beast with equal disdain. He was only
12, but no bird was safe from his
catapult, and a stone would invariably catch one unawares, usually with a chilling
finality. Viho had tried many a times to teach the boy the way of his people, to
respect every living creature and to take a life only for food, but neither
reason nor leather belt seemed to work.
The
blackbird had her nest in a spruce tree and she had just hatched a brood of hungry,
young chicks - chicks that she and her mate worked tirelessly to feed. As she
took a moment to gaze upon her brood with pride, after a hard day's work, she
felt something whizz past, and heard a sickening thud a second later. She heard
a cry of anguish from her mate, as he was silenced forever and a young boy's
shout of glee. Another whizz and her nest tumbled to the ground. Instinct
caused her to flee in distress, as she saw a cruel boy with a catapult, and her
whole life trampled beneath his boot.
The
blackbird followed the boy home, and remained perched on the silver birch
outside his cottage, day and night. She taunted him with her presence,
following him incessantly; it was like she was daring him to hit her with his
catapult. She kept at this for four weeks, and it drove the boy crazy; he wanted
to kill the damn bird! He followed her deeper and deeper into the dark woods,
places his father had warned him against going. He shot many a stone but she
always managed to elude every stone by just a whisker; it drove him mad! This
had never happened before!
It
was the first full moon night after the equinox. The boy had followed the
blackbird all day, and although he was deep inside the forest, as the full moon
rose, he didn't retrace his steps home. He was determined to get her this time,
and no beating from his father would change that. He saw her perched on a low
branch for the first time in a month; he had his chance, at last! Moving
noiselessly, he fitted a perfectly round stone, and took careful aim. He held
his breath and let fly. The blackbird took flight at the very last moment but
the stone caught her squarely on her left foot, as she tumbled to the ground.
The boy let out a loud whoop of joy, as he ran towards her. He stumbled in the
soft snow, but he ran with abandon, as the blackbird hopped painfully, hoping
to elude his grasp. He closed the gap between them quite effortlessly and
nearly had his fingers around her neck, as she suddenly took flight, and the
bear trap shut mercilessly around the boy's leg. The large rusty jaws of the
bear trap held him firmly, as his life blood spilled onto the snow covered
ground. Nobody heard him scream, so deep in the woods, and he finally succumbed
painfully to the bitter cold.
Viho
continued looking out his window, and the blackbird's tiny silhouette against
the gigantic Hunter's moon intrigued him. He was transported to being a young
boy, sitting at a bonfire, listening to a story told by the shaman. The shaman
was speaking of a blackbird, and he remembered him saying that the blackbird
got its name, not from the hue of its wing but from the colour of its soul -
vengeful and dark. Viho peered into the dark, and he thought he saw what seemed
like a boy's finger in the blackbird's beak.
