Zhou Tianhe
An oil lamp made of ink bottles was placed on a table in the middle room. Dim lights, swaying in the spider webs in the corners of the walls. There are rats churning upstairs, rats want to go downstairs to forage for food, see lights and people, and reluctantly make a demonstration on the floor. Father, mother and second uncle sat under the oil lamp and swirled persimmon cakes. The mother and the second uncle were hand-rotated, and the father was rotated by a spinning car. The rotary car is very simple, a piece of wood to make a shelf, and a rocker in the back. In front of the head, there are three holes, the holes contain three or bamboo sticks or sharpened iron wire, the persimmon tip is tied to the three tips and fixed, the right hand holds a knife on the persimmon, the left hand turns the shake handle, and the persimmon skin is rotated in a circle. They put the whirled persimmons in baskets. I took the whirlwind persimmons out of the basket and strung them on the kudzu strips. This job is simple, and after a while, you will string it together. I took the skewers of persimmon cakes out of the house and hung them on the crossbar under the eaves so that they could be hung on the eaves. At this time, I saw the flashlight flickering on the road in front of the door. I know that this is Brother Junzi and Brother Tiangui, and they are going to fight the white elk again. As soon as I walked into the house, I heard Brother Junzi shouting. "Big six, big six, go, fight the white elk and go." The big six they shouted were my second uncle. The second uncle has not become a family, and I am responsible for the hundred-year pension delivery, in fact, I am the second uncle's stepdaughter who has not been on paper. The sixth is the rank of the second uncle in their generation. The second uncle, who was alone, worked in the responsibility field, sometimes ate at my house, helped with some chores, and the persimmon cake was one of the tasks on the autumn night. At this moment, the second uncle was holding a persimmon in his hand, and he had just swung down an inch of persimmon skin with a knife, and when he heard the shouting outside, he hurriedly responded: "Wait, go right away." The father did not look up and said: "After a day of work, I am not too tired?" "Father's intention is obvious, he wants his uncle to spin persimmon cakes at home. The second uncle did not say a word, he was unhappy to make the knife in his hand hard, and the persimmon skin with thick persimmon flesh was cut off. The father felt the dissatisfaction of the second uncle and said, "If you want to go, go." The second uncle put down his work and stood up. When the second uncle was young, he loved to hunt, such as smoked badger, roe deer, wild boar, and white elk. The second uncle also had a "back-up" (a kind of earthen gun that was charged from the muzzle of the gun), but it was old enough to spoil into my toy, and I had come out of the stairs many times, carried it on my back, and walked around the yard majestically. Later, this tattered "backsuit" was also handed over. "I want to go too." I said to my father. I've been with them before. Father acquiesced. I ran out of the house quickly and picked up my second uncle. Brother Junzi, Brother Tiangui, Chaozi, and Tianmin were already waiting by the walnut tree. That day, we first went to the opposite door ditch. There is a persimmon tree in that place, and every year the white elk are killed on this tree. White elk forage on the tree, sometimes just after dark on the tree, sometimes in the middle of the night on the tree, so to fight the white elk is luck. A few of us, quietly, came to the tree and listened carefully. There was no sound in the trees, no movement in the flashlight. Not touched today, someone proposed, hide aside and wait. "Let's go, this alarm, I don't know when it will come tonight." The second uncle said. The second uncle has experience in this area. Several people walked toward the south ditch again, but still found nothing, not even the shadow of the white elk. No one complained, no one was frustrated, and everyone was still gleefully walking on the path of the ravine. (ii)
The white elk, a persimmon-loving animal, has a gray body and black and white fur on its head, and belongs to the cat family. It has been rare since the 1990s, and the state has been listed as a second-class protected animal. But in my childhood, because my hometown in the mountains of western Henan was rich in persimmons, white elk were more abundant. In those years, after the autumn harvest and autumn planting, the people in the mountains basically had no work, there was no radio in the mountains, and there was no television, and the people in the mountains used the white elk to entertain the long autumn nights. At that time, the people in the mountains also did not have a sense of ecological protection, so in the late autumn to early winter, when the persimmon trees were "red", they would go to hunt white elk in groups at night. They don't care about whether they have anything to gain each night, they just think of it as a joy of life. Of course, they also have times to reap the rewards. When there is a harvest, it is the most lively time of the autumn night in the ravine. In my memory, several times I was sleeping in a daze, when I heard brother Junzi calling my mother outside the window to get up and boil water to boil the white elk. Because there was a second uncle who participated, every time I hit the white elk in the front ravine, I boiled water to boil the white elk in my house. Hearing the shouting, the father and mother put on their clothes and boiled water. Everyone removed the hair, opened the chamber, said and laughed, the farm yard is not busy. Once, in the middle of the night, I got up in the middle of the night to see them scalding white elk, and I saw the hairless white elk being hung on the pear tree in the yard, and I thought of the scene of the waxing moon killing pigs.
Everyone worked for a while, cleaned up, divided the meat, and everyone who participated had a share, and then went home separately.
The next day, the smell of steamed white elk meat wafts from the ravine.
Mothers usually put the white elk meat and shredded radish together, mixed it with cornmeal, and then steamed it on the grate. Wheat flour was extremely scarce that year, so cornmeal had to be replaced. The dried firewood crackled and burned in the hearth, and in a moment the kung fu kitchen had a scent that made me salivate. Carrying a bowl of steamed vegetables with more shredded radish than white elk meat, I think it is the most fragrant and delicious thing under the heavens.
I remember one autumn night, we went to Xigou to hunt white elk.
That night, the moon was thin.
The place we were going to was called Eryinwa, where there was a persimmon tree, old and tall. Because a persimmon is the size of a cow's heart, we call it a cow's heart persimmon. In late autumn, the leaves fall into a tree of red lanterns, which is very beautiful. In the autumn of those years, whether we were collecting firewood, digging for medicine or collecting forsythia, when we were hungry, we would climb up the trees to pick soft persimmons to eat. Although the tree is tall, it is very easy to climb, and the tree is low and half a person high. But this tree is most patronized by white elk.
As soon as we got to the tree that day, we heard a pop. Everyone used the electric lamp in their hands to find that a white elk had jumped off the tree and run through the grass. Just when everyone was paying attention to the elk that was running away, they did not think that there was another one in the tree, and then they also jumped from the other end of the tree and disappeared from the second uncle's side.
"Good bitch, and one more!" The second uncle shouted and threw the stick in his hand. Brother Junzi ran to the tree, and there was a pile of white elk feces on the branches of the tree under the flashlight, and it was still steaming. Let go of two white elk, everyone regretted half a day.
(iii)
That night, everyone went to Nangou and did not harvest, so they decided to go to Donggou again, and they all said with great interest that the night was long anyway.
Donggou is where the brother of the army lives, far away from the family, and belongs to the deep mountains to live alone. Brother Junzi's home, really a bit of a paradise view. A small courtyard, surrounded by bamboo forests, the sound of thrushes, a stream in front of the door, the four seasons are continuous, clear to the bottom.
The direction of the east ditch and the west ditch is different, but the difference is not far. When we walked to the east ditch, the night wind was strong, and it whistled down the ravine, blowing so that the moon in the sky had fallen, and the wild birds were also crying miserably, making people's hearts hairy. The place we were going to was the ditch behind the Donggou Junzi Gemen, which we called the Donggou Houwa, which was all reclaimed wasteland.
The second uncle and the military brother and the heavenly noble brother walked in the forefront. I followed the adults with Chaozi, Tianmin and other partners. When they reached the back of the East Ditch, far from the tree, everyone relaxed their steps, and every thief was groping in the dark like a cat. When they came to the tree, the man stood still, and several flashlights shone on the tree at the same time.
At this time, I heard Brother Tiangui shouting urgently: "Yes, yes, yes, hurry!" ”
I followed the flashlight to the tree and saw a cat-like thing on the top branch, staring at the flashlight in horror with a pair of green eyes. Before I could look closely, I saw the gunshots of brother Junzi's hands, and the crisp sound of gunfire shocked the autumn night, and the mountains and fields trembled. The green eyes on the tree disappeared in an instant. Just by listening to the sound, the white elk fell off the tree, struggling desperately under the tree, kicking the leaves and flying wildly. The crowd hurried around, and with a flurry of sticks, the injured white elk whimpered. Although the white elk is shrewd, at first glance at the light, it always has to be stunned, and at the moment when it is stunned, the hunter seizes the opportunity. Its stunnedness determined its own destiny.
The second uncle picked up the hot white elk and scolded excitedly, "It's really heavy, it weighs seventeen or eight pounds." ”
The white elk was ready to burn the meat at the junzi brother's house.
The second lady opened the door for us while buttoning the buttons of her clothes: "You are really stubble (down hard), and you are not too cold." "The second lady is the mother of Junzi Brother, and she is known for her generosity in the mountains. I remember that night, everyone not only divided the white elk meat, but also ate the sauerkraut bean noodles that the second lady temporarily made.
(iv)
When I was young, autumn and adults went to fight white elk and smoked badgers, just to see a hilarity, I always looked forward to myself, when I could have a shotgun, but also walked majestically in the head of the crowd, but also killed a white elk with my own hands.
Soon, this wish finally came true, but not by my death, but by the capture of a white elk, or rather, a pick-up.
That day, my uncle and nephew Zhou Wei and I were herding cattle in Mu Nanggou and herding cattle downhill, when we both found white elk. The Mu nang ditch is a very shady trench, and the ground is full of water lakes and muddy. The cow's hooves stomped on the mud floor, stepped on deep hoof prints, and walked very slowly. A cow pulls the recklessly, emitting a hot baked grassy smell. Zhou Wei walked in front of me, and he annoyedly used the cattle stick in his hand to beat the that the cow had just pulled to pieces, and then boredly hit the mountain cotton on the side of the road.
Suddenly, he turned back to me and said, "Amakuru, you, you see that, what is it?" Zhou Wei usually stuttered a little, and now he stuttered even more. I looked in the direction he was pointing, and something like my big tanuki cat, with its long tail in tow, was lying on a rock on the edge of a bush of wild willow trees. This guy has a small head, a sharp-billed monkey cheek, and a white face. I haven't killed a white elk with my own hands, but I've seen a dead white elk and I recognize it.
"It's a white elk." I whispered.
As if we were on the verge of a great enemy, we hurried to prepare for the move. Zhou Wei raised his stick and hit it twice like lightning, watching the white elk move slightly, with no intention of running, the two of us crept over and wrapped our heads separately, and at the same time threw ourselves on the white elk and firmly pressed it. In hindsight, it was ridiculous, but in fact, the white elk did not struggle at all. I smashed a kudzu strip with a stone on the side of the road, and we tied the white elk firmly with seven hands and eight feet, when I found that there was a pile of vomit where the millet climbed. Obviously this is a sick white millet.
Carrying the white elk back and throwing it in Zhou Wei's yard, Zhou Wei's father Chang Zi Brother weighed it, 12 pounds and 7 two. The adults looked around at the white elk and asked how they had been caught. After asking about the situation, everyone analyzed that this was a white elk that had only taken medicine.
"Otherwise, the two eggs can still catch the white elk?" Nine bo patted our heads and said. Although we both analyzed the reasons why we both caught the white elk, no one cared whether the white elk who had been drugged or sick dared to eat it. At noon that day, we scalded the white elk and divided the meat.
Twenty-eight years later, what swept across China and was called "sars" was said to have been spread by white elks scientifically known as civets. That year, I happened to be in Beijing, and the crowds of Xidan and Wangfujing were usually crowded, and the crowded subway was empty, as deserted as if it had been a disaster. I couldn't figure out how an epidemic that everyone talked about could be related to this persimmon-eating white elk.
(5)
After I left the ravine in '83, I never hit a white elk again. But the second uncle, the military brother, and the tiangui brother still went to hunt the white elk on the autumn night. The second uncle dissolved the desolation of a man on a late autumn night by beating a white elk. In the end, the second uncle lost his life because of the white elk. One night in the autumn of 88, the second uncle, Brother Tiangui and Brother Tianmin went to beat up white millet in the mengou. In those years, Tianmin was small, and now that he has grown up, he has taken over the gun of his brother Junzi. The uncle heard someone shouting, and without hesitation, he went. The father knew that he could not stop him, so he said: "When you are older, you will run less with young people in the future?" "That year, the second uncle was 55 years old. Soon after their father and mother had fallen asleep, they heard tianmin in the courtyard shouting for their father to get up and boil water. Father thought that Tianmin was joking with him and coaxing him. Tianmin said, "Really stopped, don't believe you." "Father saw through the window that Tianmin was carrying a white elk under the flashlight. When my father was boiling water, he didn't see the second uncle and asked, "What about your sixth eldest?" Brother Tiangui said, "I tripped over the six white elks and said I had a stomachache and slept." "When they scalded the elk, my father was not at ease, so he went to see the second uncle. Asked the second uncle what it was like, the second uncle said, it doesn't matter, the stomach is a little sore. The people divided the elk meat, went home separately, and the autumn night returned to tranquility. At dawn, my father was relieved that his second uncle was no more, so he went to the lower court to see him. But the father shouted that he could not open the door, and the father turned to the window and shouted, and heard the faint voice of the second uncle, but did not see him get up and open the door. In desperation, my father came to the door, unloaded a door, and entered the house. The father pressed his hand on the second uncle's stomach, swollen as hard as a wooden board. The father, who knew some medical skills, was not conscious, and hurriedly called for someone to carry the second uncle to the commune hospital. The doctor diagnosed that the second uncle had fallen into the intestine and needed surgery. As a result, when the operation was performed, there was a sudden power outage, and the operation was not successful. Coupled with the fact that the effect of the anesthetic had passed and the knife edge could not be sutured, the doctor wrapped the stomach of the second uncle with gauze and carried it back to the ward. The second uncle groaned in the hospital room all night and gasped the next day. These are all things I heard my father say later. At that time, I was already working at the Qinling Gold Mine and working as a miner in the mine. In those days, it was the National Day holiday, and the first and second urgent telegrams sent by my father were pressed in the mailroom of the Ministry of Mines and were not delivered, and when I took the first telegram "My uncle was seriously ill" and the second "Uncle died of illness" that sank to crush me, I felt that the sky was dark. When I returned home, it was already the evening after the second uncle's burial. In the twilight, I knelt on my second uncle's grave and cried. Since then, I've rarely heard about white elk. It wasn't until the 2003 outbreak, when it came to civets, that I was reminded of the days when white elk were fought in the ravine. I feel like it's been that long. When I think of my second uncle, I feel that he is in my life and has not gone far. Brother Tianjun, Brother Tiangui has also gone to the Kingdom of Heaven. I always felt that they had not gone far, like the second uncle in my life, in every corner of the ravine.