Big Game Read online

  For anyone who ever thought

  they weren’t good enough.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  THE FIRST HUNT

  THE PLACE OF SKULLS

  THE TRIAL

  FIRST BLOOD

  HAZAR

  A DIFFICULT DECISION

  FIRESTORM

  SCAR

  WHO ARE YOU?

  BIG GAME

  HUNTED

  DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN

  FROM THE SAME WOOD

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY

  DEAD HEAD

  DESTINY APPROACHING

  WHAT THE FOREST WANTED

  TROPHY

  TOOTH AND NAIL

  WHAT WE DESERVE

  WATERFALL

  IN THE DEPTHS

  GHOST IN THE MIST

  ANOTHER WORLD

  AIR FORCE ONE

  NO WAY OUT

  GAME PLAN

  ENDGAME

  GAME OVER

  TRADITION IS TRADITION

  PHOTOGRAPH

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  The forest is a harsh judge. It gives each of us what we deserve. We must know how to listen and fight tooth and nail for our prey. This is what we have done for centuries and will do for centuries more. Nothing is given to us for free.

  Crouched in the shadow of a silver birch cluster, I lifted my head and sniffed the breeze. The earthy musk of damp moss and soil filled my nostrils, but there was a hint of something else; something warm and wild.

  I remained still, listening for the rustle of movement.

  There.

  Something ahead, hidden in the dappled green of the forest.

  Without taking my eyes off the trees, I reached down and snatched a pinch of last autumn’s leaves. Brown and dusty, they blew toward me when I sprinkled them in the air, and I knew that whatever was out there would not be able to smell me. I was under the wind.

  My grip tightened on the bow in my left hand, and with my right, I reached back to slip an arrow from the quiver. Its point was sharp and clean.

  Nocking the arrow to the bowstring, I stepped forward without making a sound. I paused, then took another step, moving slowly. Ahead, the forest floor was littered with dry leaves and twigs, but I was a hunter. The best in our village. I would pass over them like a ghost.

  Stepping onto the coppery, mottled carpet of leaves, I kept my foot flat. Time stood still. My heartbeat slowed. My muscles were relaxed and my mind was calm.

  And then I saw it. Not far ahead. A shape through the branches.

  It was the biggest animal I had ever seen, standing proud and straight, its head turned in my direction. Its antlers were enormous, spanning at least as wide as I could hold out my arms.

  Straightening my back and taking a deep breath, I raised the bow and drew the string to my cheek. I closed one eye and aimed, allowing my breath to leave my lungs in a steady stream.

  Now.

  When I released the string, the arrow hummed across the forest. It cut through the air, covering the short distance in an instant: a deadly missile of wood and feather, fired straight and true.

  But the arrow clipped a swaying branch and deflected to the right. It twisted and spun, clattering against the trunk of a silver birch and falling into the leaves like a harmless twig.

  “Damn.”

  Right away I reached for another arrow, put it to the string, drew, and fired.

  This time the arrow made it through the branches, but its power was gone by the time it reached the deer. When it struck the animal’s hindquarters, it bounced off and was swallowed by the undergrowth.

  “No way!”

  I moved closer and fired again, this time almost hitting the place where the buck’s heart would be, but once again the arrow failed to pierce its skin.

  “I’m dead,” I said, lowering the bow. “I’m never going to pass the Trial.”

  Reality came crashing back around me. I wasn’t the best hunter in my village. I wasn’t even the best hunter my age. I was hopeless. My bow was weaker than the other boys’ because I wasn’t strong enough to draw anything bigger, and my aim was worse.

  I sighed as I trudged across to the shape behind the trees and pushed through the branches to stand beside it. From a distance it looked just right, but close up it was nothing more than a pile of sticks and moss with an old coffee-colored blanket thrown over the top. Dad and I had built it last month for me to practice on, right here in the trees behind our house.

  I cursed and put another arrow to my bow, and shot the dummy at point-blank range. The tip of the arrow thumped through the blanket and straight into the fake animal’s heart.

  I shook my head. Maybe I’d be all right if I could get close to something. Or maybe I’d get lucky, or —

  Footsteps behind me.

  I turned and waited, knowing it was Dad because I recognized the timing and weight of his steps. He was a big man, with a long stride, but was light on his feet.

  “Oskari,” he said, holding the branches aside and looking through. “Getting in some last-minute practice?”

  I brushed the hair from my eyes and shrugged, trying to ignore the creeping sense of dread at what was to come. Tomorrow was my thirteenth birthday, but before I could become a man, I had to face the Trial.

  “Well …” He hesitated, as if he didn’t quite know what to say. “Everyone’ll be waiting. Are you ready to go?”

  “I guess.” But I stayed where I was.

  Dad watched me for a moment, then came over and put a hand under my chin, lifting my face so I had to look at him. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  I nodded, and tried to smile. But it didn’t feel like I was going to be fine.

  My stomach was turning somersaults when I propped my bow in the corner of my bedroom and left the house.

  Dad was waiting in the SUV, with the engine already running. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Come on!” he called through the open window. “We have to go.”

  I pulled the front door of the house shut behind me and jogged over to the vehicle, but when I went around to open the passenger side door, Dad shook his head at me.

  “On the way to the Trial, you sit in the back,” he said. “When it’s over, you can sit in the front like a man. It’s the way things are done.”

  Without replying, I climbed into the back. It was a long time since I’d sat there, and it made me feel small.

  Dad crunched the SUV into gear and drove away. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror and ran his fingers across his beard as if he was thinking hard about something. “I know you don’t really want to do it, but tradition is tradition.”

  “I do want to do it,” I said.

  He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and closed the window instead. Right away, the cool breeze stopped and it felt very hot in the back. The air was stale and smelled of old boots.

  Through the village, the potholed road was lined with waiting vehicles, and as we passed them, they beeped their horns and fell into a convoy behind us. I tried to forget they were all following me. They were coming to my Trial.

  “Do the elk,” Dad said.

  I took a deep breath, cupped my hands around my mouth, and tried to make the sound he had taught me.

  “Myygh! Myygh!”

  Dad frowned. “Well, it’s close, but sounds a bit more like an old man snoring. Maybe your deer is better?”

  When I tried to make that sound, though, it was more like a drowned cat. Dad shook his head and turned his attention back to the road.

  I closed my eyes and wished I were somewhere else. “Sorry.”

  “You’ll be fine, Oskari,” he said for about the
fifth time. But it sounded more like he was trying to persuade himself that I wasn’t going to let him down. “Everything you need is on the ATV. But if you remember what I showed you, you won’t need any of it. In my day, there were no ATVs to get around, only our feet, and we managed just fine. Now, tell me what are the two most important things.”

  “Umm …”

  “Come on, Oskari. The two most important things.”

  “My knife.”

  “Yes.”

  “And my fire kit.”

  “You have them with you?”

  “Right here.” I patted the knife hanging from my belt, then touched the pocket of my jacket where there was a waterproof tub containing my fire kit.

  “Good boy. As long as you have those two things, you can survive anywhere and anything. Carry them on you at all times. Never put them in your pack, and don’t lose them. Out there, they can be the difference between life and death.”

  “It’s just one night,” I said, trying to make myself sound brave.

  “Doesn’t matter. One night in the wilderness is enough. Anything can go wrong; you know that. The knife and the fire kit will keep you safe and warm and well fed for as long as you need. And you will have the bow, of course.”

  The bow. Just the thought of it made my stomach go cold.

  I sighed and turned to look through the dirty back window, swaying and jostling with the movement of the vehicle. The village was long gone now, lost in the trees as we climbed through the foothills of the tallest mountain in this part of the wilderness — Mount Akka.

  Behind us, the trailer rattled on the bumpy road, with Dad’s all-terrain vehicle secured to the top of it. The ATV strained against the chains as if it were alive and desperate to break free. With its chipped green paint, that big old muddy quad bike had been around for as long as I could remember, and Dad was always fixing it or trying to trade for parts because he couldn’t afford a new one.

  Behind that was the line of vehicles following us: an assorted convoy of old rusted pickups and four-wheel-drive SUVs. Some of them were loaded with equipment and covered with tarps that flapped in the wind; others pulled rickety old caravans. I watched them for a moment, and it made me feel sick just thinking about all the men inside them: men who were coming up the mountain to watch me take the Trial, men who were expecting me to fail because I was neither the strongest nor the best at anything.

  Mom always said I was a slow grower. When I came back from school with bruises, she would make me hot chocolate and say it was only a matter of time before I was bigger and stronger than boys like Risto and Broki, but that they would never be as clever as I was. Dad would smile and agree.

  “Bigger, stronger, and smarter,” he used to say. “You’ll be more than just a hunter one day.”

  He didn’t smile much now that Mom was gone, though.

  To the left of the road, the rocky crags and endless pines swept up into the wilderness that rose around Mount Akka. There, the lush spring forest was thick and dark and full of life. Right now, though, I didn’t want to think about what lived in there — bears that could take your head off with one swipe of their paw; vicious, dog-size wolverines with teeth that could crush bone. Mom used to tell me stories about other things, too; like Ajatar, the Devil of the Woods, who appeared as a dragon and made you sick if you so much as looked at her. And there was the näkki that lived in the swamps and lakes, a shape-shifting monster who was waiting to drag you down to a watery death. All just kids’ stuff, of course, but I used to love it when she sat on the edge of my bed and told me about them before kissing my forehead and turning off the light. She knew all the stories.

  “You’re thinking about Mom.” Dad’s voice was quiet. “I can always tell.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I miss her, too.” It was almost a whisper, as if he didn’t want to admit it.

  On the other side of the road, there was a drop that fell away to nothing. If Dad steered too far in that direction, we would topple over the edge and it would be a long time before we hit the ground.

  “I have something for you,” Dad said. He popped open the glove compartment and rummaged inside while watching the road and leaning to one side. There were all kinds of things in there: wrinkled papers, cartridges for his rifle, an old knife with a bone handle, loose pieces of twine, and an open pack of cigarettes. What he took out, though, was a crumpled scroll of paper, which he passed back to me, saying, “Here. For you.”

  “What is it?” I asked, reaching forward to take it with trembling fingers.

  The paper was yellow, as if it was very old. It was stiff, creased from where it had been squashed into the glove compartment, and it smelled of oil.

  Dad grabbed the pack of cigarettes and took one out before throwing the carton back in and snapping the glove compartment shut. When he lit the cigarette and opened the window just a crack, the wind blew the smoke into my face. I moved to get away from it.

  “Go ahead,” Dad said. “Open it.”

  I hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and unrolled the paper to look at the old drawing.

  “A map?” I recognized one or two of the places marked on it. I could see the road we were on right now, and the forest that stretched out to our left. And, high in the foothills, at the base of Mount Akka, was the Place of Skulls, where we were headed. Right down at the bottom of the map was our village.

  “There’s a red cross,” Dad said.

  I traced my finger over the map, feeling the ridges and bumps of the old, stiff paper. “Yeah. What is it?” I kept my fingertip pointing at the red cross. It looked new, as if someone had drawn it with a marker.

  “It’s our little secret,” Dad said. “A place where there are bound to be deer.” He took his hands off the wheel and stretched his arms wide. “I’m talking about handsome bucks with big antlers.”

  “A secret hunting ground?” I studied the red cross, already feeling the mystery of that place. I remembered how Mom used to say the buck would be my animal — that it was what the forest would give me.

  “Exactly. So you get close, you wait until dawn, and you stay under the wind.”

  “Okay, Dad.” I tore my eyes from the map and looked up at him. “I know how to call them.”

  I saw his reaction, though. The way he raised his eyebrows and looked away to stare at the road. “The secret hunting ground is on a large plateau near the top of the mountain,” he said. “Rest before you get to the peak and climb up at dawn. You’ll find a buck and pass the Trial.”

  Rest. In the dark. Alone in the forests of Mount Akka for a whole night. I’d thought about almost nothing else for the past two weeks. I’d dreamed about it, waking up with a heavy feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach.

  I swallowed and tried to make myself feel strong — for me and for Dad. This was important for both of us.

  “Dad?”

  “Hm?”

  “I want you to know … the Trial … I’m going to do my best.”

  “I know you will.”

  I glanced down at the map once more, then rolled it up and stuffed it into my pocket. When I looked up again, Dad was watching me in the mirror.

  “But I don’t know if my best will ever be —”

  “Your best will be good enough.” Dad nodded and forced a smile, but we both knew: Dad was a hero, a legend, and whatever I did, my best would never be good enough.

  The world darkened when the road twisted away through the trees and Dad took us higher and higher into the foothills. We continued up into that explosion of greens and browns, surrounded by pines and spruce that reached so high I had to press my face to the dirty glass and look up to see the tops. The fresh, sweet smell that came in through Dad’s open window reminded me of early mornings in the forest. Every day for the last month he had woken me at first light and taken me out to the forest behind our house to practice making fires and building shelters. He’d made me track animals and use camouflage and shoot arrow
after arrow at the fake deer, using his bow instead of mine. I’d never been strong enough to draw his bow all the way back, though, and I knew it worried him as much as it worried me.

  Dad crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and closed up the window. “Nearly there,” he said.

  My stomach reeled and I made myself nod. “Yeah.”

  I shuffled to one side so I was right behind him, and took out the photo I had stolen from the board in the Hunting Lodge. About the size of a postcard, it was old, like the map, and creased down the middle. I unfolded it and stared at the picture of Dad on his thirteenth birthday. With a large bow in one fist, he was hunched under the weight of the brown bear’s head he carried on his back. I wondered how I could ever be as strong and brave as him.

  “You’ll show them,” Dad said, as if he knew what I was thinking.

  I folded the photo away and stuffed it into my pocket just as he glanced up in the rearview mirror.

  “You’ve got your mom’s brains, Oskari. You’re smart. Way smarter than I ever was. There’s more to this than being the biggest and strongest; I’ve told you that.”

  I couldn’t think of anything that would be more useful than being the biggest and strongest, though. The bravest, maybe. Or a rifle.

  “Remember the map,” Dad said. “Don’t lose it.”

  As the head of the convoy, we were the first to reach the top of the foothills and emerge into the Place of Skulls at the base of Mount Akka. We rattled and bumped onto a large, flat, and stony clearing I had never seen but had heard about from the older boys. It was almost completely surrounded by thick forest and craggy rocks rising up on all sides, but at the far end was a sheer drop, and I could see thick, rolling clouds smothering the distant peaks of the other mountains. Dad drove us almost to the edge, tires crunching on the loose stones, and brought the SUV to a stop, facing into the Place of Skulls, before switching off the engine.

  At the opposite side of the clearing, a black cloud erupted from the treetops. It burst up into the gray-bruised sky and broke into what must have been a hundred crows. They circled and scattered in different directions before coming back to settle.

  When the men of my village talked about this place, they spoke as if it were sacred ground. As if it were a part of them. And even though some of my friends had described it to me, and Dad had tried to prepare me for it, I had never imagined it would look like this.