Darkness spread, and with it the despair that the confounded people felt. The next day was a Sunday, so it would be evening by the time armed police arrived with the district collector’s order. There was no telling what might happen in the meantime, or whether the animals might manage to escape into the deep forest. By then, everyone had started referring to the bull-buffalo as ‘he’, as though they were not talking about a four-legged domestic animal but about a cunning, vengeful, debauched and exceedingly strong man. Outsiders who had joined the hunt had, by then, taken to throwing lit firecrackers into bushes and compounds and shouting at the top of their voices, and terrified animals ran in all directions wreaking havoc. Men worried about the women and children left alone at home, and women worried about their husbands who might, at any instant, end up in front of a raging buffalo.

Suddenly, someone said the words ‘Kuttachan, Kuttachan . . .’ It was a name that had been on everyone’s mind since the hunt began in the morning, but no one had dared say it aloud. The crowd split into two—one wanting to solicit Kuttachan’s help and the other, with Anthony’s voice ringing loudly, dead against it. Kaalan Varky refrained from commenting.

A marksman who never missed his target, Kuttachan was a well-known hunter. There was a time when the area had been known for the top-quality game meat he sold in secret. He also traded in arrack, brewed from palm toddy in stills set up deep in the forest, and a lehyam or jam-like preparation of marijuana. There were many stories about him threatening women who entered the forest searching for a stray goat or to collect firewood with his gun and making them take off their clothes. Eventually, his free reign in the forest came to an end when a forest office was established in the area, and he got embroiled in a dozen cases and had to spend some time in jail. That was when he became Varky’s helper at the butchery. The brisk business that went on there surprised him. When he stashed a bundle of ganja in the palm-leaf roof of the shop in an attempt to get rid of Varky by getting him arrested, the local people beat him up and ran him out of the village.

A bunch of people got into a jeep and went over the hills to the other side in search of Kuttachan. The moment he saw them, his eyes glittered in the memories of the local women and the prime agricultural land. Still, he tried to be firm. ‘I’ll not return there. Not on my life!’

But faced with their entreaties, he soon changed his mind. He picked up his well-oiled, unlicensed double-barrel gun, slung the bag of gunpowder and glass over his shoulder, and set out with them. Two sharp sticks, used to pierce the nose of bulls to put on rings, hung from his waist.