I’m only realizing it now Marco told me: The weather was changing. But I ignored it: I concentrated on reading deer tracks in the snow. They were fresh tracks, the tracks of a male, and quite large ones at that. You could feel it from deep inside. I looked up and told him we were close. We loaded our rifles and followed the animal’s tracks into the forest.
I was in shrine with blackened columnsa vast milky ceiling above us, and we have profaned it with the blasphemy of our desires.
I heard a bang. I looked around: a drift of snow was coming down from the branch. We continued. Every now and then my son looked back, our tracks overlapping and obliterating the deer tracks. I grabbed my rifle and picked up the pace. I tried to catch every noise, every movement.
The tracks led us down the slope. Up there, we sank shin-deep into the snow. Out of breath, Marco asked me if we could stop for a moment, I told him to move, I told him I wasn’t taking him with me anymore. A huge bow landed on her sleeve my coat We had to hurry before it started snowing seriously.
We walked for a while before they appeared before my eyes. I stopped Marc’s pace with a sudden gesture, he understood. We crouched down, silent, motionless. I have never met such a beautiful specimen. Fast feet, shiny reddish fur, thicker and darker around the massive neck and a white spot on the back. Its crown: a spiky mess smoothed to perfection by Mother Nature. He had to earn that gem after a thousand victorious battles. A king, that’s what he was. And we paid him homage, we bowed before him. But the king was already mine.
The snowfall increased. I picked up the rifle and looked through the viewfinder at the animal’s motionless pupil. His nostrils let out intermittent snorts. I readied my finger on the trigger, held my breath, but a sudden gunshot rang in my ears. I turned to Marc: it was the smoking barrel of his rifle. I yelled at him for being an idiot. He tried to defend himself, he told me he didn’t want to, that a shot had been fired. I immediately looked for the beast, but could not find it. I ran to where he was, I watched the footsteps and followed them. Behind me was Marco’s labored breathing as he struggled to keep up.
We were going down the slope. On the way I noticed the mouth of a cave. We continued on, but no tracks: the snow had filled them. Furious, I continued down, confident that I would find my king.
We were back in the flat part of the forest. I stopped, looked into the distance: nothing. Marco told me to go home, that it was all useless, but I kept silent. The snow fell heavily, we wandered aimlessly: i gave up. I got my bearings, recognized the road we were coming from, and headed to the car. Until the fog closed in and we had no choice: let ourselves be swallowed up.
It was so quiet that you didn’t even hear my footsteps. Marco grabbed my hand, he was scared. I stopped thinking. We couldn’t even call for help, we had our cell phones in the car: that was our rule when we went into the forest. The only solution was to escape the fog, take cover and wait for the snow to end. Cave: we would camp there. I shook Marco’s hand like I did as a child when helping him cross the street and told him to never let go. We returned to the slope.
We advanced blindly. I could feel Marco shaking and panting. Then the fog started to melt, I recognized certain trees, certain ravines. But the climb up the slope was even more difficult. We fell to our knees. I could no longer feel my nose or lips. I watched the sky as it fearlessly dumped snow and began to darken. Only desperation drove us to the cave. As we entered that darkness, I thought of the royal disciple. Feeling numb, we huddled and hugged like we hadn’t in a long time. Then the sun went down and it was completely dark. Marco complained in a weak voice about the cold: I gave him gloves. His sobs echoed in the darkness of the cave. He apologized to me, told me that if they hadn’t shot him, we would never have gotten into that situation. I assured him it wasn’t his fault, it was my fault, but I couldn’t admit it. He stammered that he didn’t want to freeze. I promised him that we would make it, but that under no circumstances should we fall asleep. In order not to sleep, I began to pray to myself.
I suddenly woke up. It was still night, it had stopped snowing. I called Marc, told him it had stopped snowing, but he didn’t wake up, I shook him, once or twice more. It didn’t move.
Matteo Romano