They Were Found Wanting (38 page)

Now dusk began to fall and the golden light faded from the peaks of the Munchel. Lilac shadows spread over the valley and the scent of wildflowers and fallen leaves became overpoweringly strong.

Abady was just getting ready to go back to his camp when another movement at the base of the clearing caught his eye. Something brown was moving at the edge of the fir tree plantation.

A giant mother bear, followed by two cubs, ambled slowly out into the clearing with that strange swaying walk, the head apparently wobbling from side to side almost as if the animal were shaking its head in puzzled consideration of a new idea. After a moment the mother bear paused to allow her two cubs, tiny beside the huge bulk of their mother, to join her. Then all three moved slowly and deliberately towards that part of the meadow which was the most boggy and where the wild clover grew and all the fresh buds were at their most succulent. Seen through the binoculars it seemed to Balint as if the trio were as close as if they were at his feet. He could even see the sparkle in the cubs’ eyes as they nibbled at the feast to which they had been brought. The mother, on the other hand, grabbed at whole clumps of grass, gnawing them to the root and leaving round bare patches where she had eaten. When one of the cubs strayed too far the mother would bark out a gruff command and the cub, for all the world like any well-brought-up youngster, would return at once to his place to be greeted with a light cuff over the ear, for family discipline was not the prerogative of humans.

After feeding for some considerable time the family moved slowly away in the direction of the waterfall. Balint started to climb down, taking care that his gun did not clatter against the rungs of the ladder. As quietly as possible he started to walk back to the camp along the grass-covered path. It was not yet
completely
dark and as he came to a turn in the path he heard a very faint little
tap-tap-tap
on the ground coming from the young trees that bordered the pathway. Standing quite still, Balint looked in the direction of the noise which continued, though hesitantly, as if whatever creature was making it did not know his way.

Then Balint heard the plaintive call of a young roe-deer – a much higher and softer note than the mating call of the adult female – and all at once a very young roe-deer jumped onto the path and nearly bumped into Abady himself. Hardly noticing the presence of a human the little animal looked this way and that, uttering repeated little pipings and flapping its large ears in one direction after another. It was clearly in distress, its ears turning in every direction in the most comical manner until Balint
imagined
that the little animal was saying to itself that suddenly it understood nothing, that its mother, always until then so
protective
and so omnipresent, had run away and left her all alone in the dark frightening forest, and that nothing like that had ever happened in the world before! There was no way, reflected Balint, that the young fawn could have understood what
happened
in the forest when the mating season began, and that later, when her mother had played out the game of flight and refusal and eventual surrender, she would come back and look after her offspring. In the meantime the fawn stood there, its tiny
patent-leather
-like snout sniffing in all directions trying to pick up its mother’s scent. Balint held his breath and for several minutes the man and the little deer stood there within a few yards of each other. Finally it was the animal that moved. It lifted its head, piped twice, turned its ears in the direction of the clearing below and trotted off.

Balint was so diverted that he broke into silent laughter, happy that the forest had now returned to its former calm and primeval silence.

He thought of the villagers and their invasion of the new
plantations
and was at once strengthened in his determination to put a stop to the illegal grazing.

The next day Balint was already in the valley of the Szamos by noon. He was on horseback, the
gornyiks
on foot. They all carried guns and some of the men also had hatchets. Although one pack-horse would have been quite enough for their needs they had brought a second with them, telling the three casually employed extra men, who had been told nothing of the real
purpose
of the expedition, that they were going right up the valley as far as the Puspokseg district where the country markets held untold riches! This plan had been concocted in the greatest detail for the benefit of the men of the mountains who were curious, clever and shrewd, as otherwise Balint’s plan to surprise the Gyurkuca peasants would soon have been discovered and at once known to the whole district. And, if this happened, of course not a trace of the villagers’ cattle would be found on the forbidden land and everyone would have had a good laugh at the noble lord’s expense.

It took some time for the little party to traverse the village for the houses were strung some two kilometres along the bank of the river. Fortunately it was a Sunday and so none of the
villagers
were working away from the village. No one, therefore, saw the little band turn away from the river left towards Ponor and suddenly disappear swiftly into the darkness of the pine forest.

They travelled in silence, led by Juanye Vomului as they had now reached that part of the Abady forestlands which was his responsibility. Just as night was falling they reached a small
meadow
where the horses were watered and fed and from which a steep path would lead them at dawn to the mountain ridge which formed the near side of the newly planted clearing.

Because the hammering would be sure to be heard and give away their presence they did not construct the usual shelter but rolled themselves in their blankets and slept on the ground. A tiny fire they did make, but this was so insignificant, and anyhow so soon doused, that it could not have been seen from a distance.

It was still dark when they took to the road. Blindly they struggled upwards in the darkness hardly able to see the path. When they reached the summit dawn was beginning to break, and though the smaller stars had already become invisible in the slowly brightening sky a few of the brighter ones still shone high above them. Thick fog covered the valley of the Intreapa but the ridge opposite could be clearly seen as a hard purple shadow
silhouetted
against the blushing eastern sky. To the right of where they stood lay the two-hundred-acre plot but as it was still in
shadow
it was impossible to see if there were any cattle grazing there. On the side where the Abady property marched with the village common lands the boundary was marked by a short straight opening on a steep slope which needed only four men to control it effectively. At the bottom of the valley was the stream which led down to the Szamos. Abady’s plan was to corral all the cattle into one group and then drive them away beside the bed of the stream.

Balint picked his way slowly downhill. Now it was getting lighter and he could see, on the other side of the valley, Winckler marshalling his men into place so that they would be ready as soon as the morning mists cleared away. The two men met briefly at the stream and then Winckler returned uphill so as to direct his men when the drive began.

Then the early morning breeze got up, caused by the sun warming the air in the lower valley of the Szamos, which then rose to the upper valleys disturbing there the cold night air and provoking chilly gusts of wind which lasted until the sun could penetrate the depths of the upper valleys. Suddenly, as if touched by a magic wand, the fog disappeared, and the whole valley was clearly to be seen. There, in front of the waiting band, was the Abady clearing, on both sides of the valley, filled with cattle, the cattle of the Gyurkuca villagers. There must have been at least two hundred of them, calves, oxen, heifers, little spots of white clearly defined against the green grass and the cut tree stumps. One of the
gornyiks
started the drive with a soft whistle. Abady’s men moved slowly forward but after a few minutes, before they had time even to reach the edge of the plantation, a strange thing happened.

From one of the ridges above them came the deep bellowing sound of a mountain horn, wild and startling and somehow almost melodious as well, a sound something between a hunting horn and an organ; it was the three-yard long
tulnyik
, the calling horn of the mountain people, and now there was not only one, but another, on the other side of the valley, and then a third from right in the centre where the ridges on both sides of the valley came together to form a miniature pass. It was a long-drawn-out sound, full of terror and menace and so powerful that the very air seemed to tremble.

At the first wave of sound the cattle seemed to go mad, running helter-skelter in the direction of the village, pregnant cows, elderly oxen, young calves and yearling heifers alike, racing towards the beaters, jumping over fallen logs, barging into
carefully
constructed woodpiles, rushing homewards with all the impulsion of the Gadarene swine; they had been called by the clashing sound of the great horns resounding from the hilltops around them. In an instant twenty or thirty of the beasts had already reached the stream below, running with all the force of a cavalry charge. The horns continued their deafening sound, and now it was mingled with the frightened lowing of the cattle and the shouts of Abady’s beaters. It was an inferno of sound in the previously tranquil valley.

Such was the force of the stampede that it would have been impossible to ‘arrest’ a single animal. In a few moments the horns ceased and the cattle had all disappeared. The two-
hundred-acre
plantation was empty.

Abady’s men were all in a rage of frustration and when Juanye Vomului reached Abady’s side he threw his sheepskin cap on the ground and cursed as he had never cursed before,
spluttering
with anger, though nothing could stem the flow of his
expletives
. The other
gornyiks
did their best to outdo him, just to show how keen they were, but none succeeded.

Clearly there was nothing to be done. The trap had failed.

Honey Zutor suggested he should take a party up to the ridge above and try to catch the shepherds who had given the signal, but they all realized it would have been to no purpose. Everyone concerned would have been long gone. And so, while Winckler turned back to take the path to Beles, Balint took the easier route to the foot of the Ponor where Zutor and Juanye would rejoin him with his horse.

It was already noon before Balint reached the banks of the Szamos river, and there, so as not to have to ride through the
village
, shamefaced after his fruitless expedition, he forded the river to take a different path, one that lay through the woods and emerged at the sawmill of Toszerat whence the road led either up to the mountains or down to the main valley. When they reached the mill Balint found there Gaszton Simo, the arrogant and pretentious district notary who had in some way become aware of Abady’s movements and was obviously waiting for him. As soon as Abady came into sigh he galloped up on his handsome dapple-grey gelding.