Strange Shores

3

Bóas halted in the middle of an expanse of scree and gestured to him to do likewise. Emulating the farmer, he dropped to his knees and peered into the fog.

Minutes passed without his being aware of any movement, until quite suddenly he found himself looking into the eyes of a fox. It stood about fifteen metres away, staring at them with ears pricked. Almost imperceptibly, Bóas tightened his grip on the gun, but it was enough to startle the fox which whisked away up the slope, vanishing from sight in an instant.

‘Bless her,’ said the hunter, standing up and slinging his gun over his shoulder again before continuing on his way.

‘Is that the culprit?’ asked Erlendur.

‘Yes, that’s the little blighter. I know the earths in this area like the back of my hand and I reckon we’re close. They return to the same lairs generation after generation, you know, so I dare say some date back a pretty long way — though maybe not quite to the Ice Age.’

They walked on, through the hush of nature, until they came to a small hide made of heaped stones and moss. Bóas told him to take a breather and remarked that they were lucky with the wind direction, then said he was going to take a look around. Erlendur sat down on the moss and waited. He recalled what he knew about the Arctic fox, said to be the first settler of Iceland since it had arrived ten thousand years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Judging by the way he blessed it and spoke about it like an old friend, Bóas had a great respect for the beast. Even so, he was prepared to exterminate it if necessary — to snuff out its life and dispatch its offspring as if this were all in a day’s work.

‘She’s here, bless her. All we need now is a little patience,’ Bóas announced when he returned, and got down beside him in the hide. He unslung the rifle and ammunition from his shoulder, and put down the leather satchel, producing a hip flask that he offered to Erlendur who grimaced as he tasted the contents. Bóas obviously made his own moonshine and was none too particular about how he distilled it.

‘What does a bit of depopulation matter anyway?’ Bóas asked rhetorically, taking back the flask. ‘The countryside was uninhabited when we arrived, so why shouldn’t it be abandoned again when we leave? Why sell the land to speculators to try and halt a perfectly natural process? — tell me that. People come and people go. I ask you, what could be more natural?’

Erlendur shrugged.

‘Look at poor old Hvalfjördur on your doorstep,’ Bóas continued, ‘with those two monstrosities belching out poison day and night. And who for? A bunch of insanely rich foreigners who couldn’t even find Iceland on a map. Is that our fate? To end up as a factory for people like that?’

He handed the flask back to Erlendur who this time sipped with extreme caution. Bóas rummaged in his satchel again and removed a large object wrapped in plastic that produced a rancid stench when opened. It was a lump of meat that had gone distinctly high. After chucking it as far as he could in the direction of the fox’s earth, he wiped his hands on the moss and reclined again with the rifle at his side.

‘Shouldn’t take her long to get wind of that.’

They waited quietly in the drizzle.

‘Of course, you wouldn’t remember me,’ Bóas said after a while.

‘Should I?’ asked Erlendur, coughing.

‘No, it would be surprising if you did,’ said Bóas. ‘After all, you weren’t yourself at the time. And it’s not as if I knew your parents — we didn’t have any contact.’

‘When was this? How do you mean I wasn’t myself?’

‘During the search,’ Bóas said. ‘When you and your brother went missing.’

‘You were there?’

‘Yes, I joined the search party. Everybody did. I hear you come out here now and then. Roam the moors like a ghost and sleep in the old croft at Bakkasel. You still believe you can find him, don’t you?’

‘No, I don’t. Is that what people are saying?’

‘Us old folks like to reminisce about the past and someone happened to mention that you still go up on the moors. And to prove it, here you are.’

He didn’t want to have to explain his behaviour to a stranger or justify how he chose to live his life. This was his childhood home and he came back for a visit every so often when he felt the urge. He did a lot of walking in the area and preferred the ruined farmhouse to a hotel. Sometimes he pitched a tent, at other times he unrolled his sleeping mat on a dry patch in the house.

‘So you remember the search?’ he said.

‘I remember them finding you,’ Bóas replied, not taking his eyes off the bait. ‘I wasn’t with them but the news spread quickly and it came as a tremendous relief. After that we were convinced we’d find your brother too.’

‘He died.’

‘So it seems.’

Erlendur was silent.

‘He was younger than you,’ prompted Bóas.

‘Yes, two years younger. He was eight.’

They sat there, the minutes ticking by, until Bóas seemed to sense a subtle alteration in their surroundings. Erlendur could not detect it, though he thought it might have been related to the behaviour of the birds. It was some time before Bóas relaxed again and offered him more of the hard mutton pâté and rye bread, and another swig of the hip flask’s poisonous brew. The fog settled over them like a white eiderdown. From time to time the piping of a bird reached their ears; otherwise all was quiet.

He couldn’t remember any member of the search party in particular. When he came to, they were hurriedly carting him down from the moor, his body rigid as a block of ice. He remembered warm milk being trickled between his lips on the way, but after that he had lost consciousness and was aware of nothing until he found himself lying tucked up in bed with the doctor leaning over him. Hearing unfamiliar voices in the house, he knew instinctively that something bad had happened but couldn’t immediately recall what. Then his memory returned. His mother hugged him tight, telling him his father was alive — he had made it home against all the odds — but they were still out looking for his brother, though they were bound to find him soon. She asked if he could help at all, by telling the search party where to look. But all he could remember was the screaming, blinding whiteness that had battered him to his knees over and over again until he couldn’t take another step.

He saw Bóas’s knuckles whiten as the fox emerged without warning from the fog and picked her way warily towards the bait. She moved closer, sniffing the air, and before he could ask Bóas if it was really necessary to kill her, the hunter had fired and the vixen crumpled to the ground. Bóas rose and went to fetch the carcass.

‘Like some coffee?’ he asked as he brought his prey into the hide. He took a Thermos from his satchel and unscrewed the two lids that served as cups. One of these he passed to Erlendur, full of steaming liquid, and asked if he took milk. Erlendur declined, saying he drank it black.

‘You have to take milk, it’s unnatural not to!’ Bóas exclaimed, rooting around in the bag, unable to find what he was looking for. ‘Blast it! I’ve only gone and forgotten the bloody stuff.’

He took a mouthful of coffee and declared it undrinkable. Then, clearly agitated, he glanced around, slapping the pockets of his coat as if he might have secreted a carton of milk in one of them. Finally his gaze was arrested by the carcass.

‘Probably pointless,’ he remarked, seizing the animal and groping under her belly for her teats, only to discover that they were empty.