The optician had run out without his jacket. He was still wearing his sweater vest with the Employee of the Month badge. He emptied his sack at Elsbeth’s feet, stuck a few nails between his lips, and began hectically hammering the pieces of wood over the sawn cracks. The noise was deafening.

“What’s going on now?” Palm asked overhead. “Would you piss off already?” he hissed. “You’re scaring away the pigs.”

The optician froze and looked up. “You have to come down right now,” Elsbeth called.

“No!” the optician yelled, and the nails fell from his mouth. “For God’s sake, Palm, stay up there. Don’t move!”

He leaned toward Elsbeth. “If he climbs down now, the thing will collapse,” he whispered, and hammered with all his strength. His heart hammered to the same beat, as if to help.

“Would you stop with this shit?” Palm hissed.

“I’m sorry, I was wrong,” Elsbeth said. “Instead of wrapping wire around the post seven times, you’re supposed to hammer it.”

Palm started yelling.

“I’ve had it with both of you,” he roared, then grabbed his rifle and stood up.

“Stay up there,” Elsbeth shouted.

“Don’t come down,” the optician shouted. But Palm turned around and started to climb down the ladder, still yelling ferociously.

“If you’re not afraid of dying, you have to stay up in a hunting blind no matter what,” Elsbeth shouted.

“Stay up there!” the optician shouted, and hammered. Palm swayed on the ladder. The optician stopped hammering, leapt to the post that was most unstable, and wrapped his arms around it to stabilize it with his own body.

“You’re the one scaring away the pigs,” Elsbeth shouted, and when Palm reached the sixth rung from the top, he slipped and fell.

Palm fell far. The optician let go of the post and leapt to the ladder, believing he could catch Palm. Even though it seemed to Elsbeth that Palm was falling astonishingly slowly, as if he were falling in slow motion, the optician still wasn’t fast enough.

He’s the one, Elsbeth thought, Palm’s the one who will die, and Palm hit the ground right in front of the optician.

Elsbeth and the optician knelt down next to him. Palm didn’t move. His eyes were closed. He breathed heavily and stank of schnapps.

Elsbeth asked herself if anyone other than Martin and Martin’s mother had ever dared get this close to him. She examined Palm as closely as she would a stuffed predator.

“Palm, say something!” the optician said.

Palm was silent.

“Can you move your legs?” Elsbeth asked.

Palm remained silent but rolled to his side.

Palm was not the one who would die.

The headlamp illuminated his profile, his nose’s cratered landscape, the blond hair stuck to the nape of his neck. Elsbeth took hold of his wrist. His pulse thundered over the meadow.