After the night they heard the bell, the entire camp changed.
The workers said nothing about what they had seen at the edge of the forest. No one dared step beyond the sleeping quarters after sunset. Even Suea, the camp foreman who had never yielded to anyone, ordered the fires moved together into the middle of the clearing.
Only Kham still refused to believe that black shadow had been a ghost.
At dawn, he examined the tracks at the forest's edge and found that their depth varied from step to step. In some places, whatever had walked there seemed extremely heavy; in others, it had been so light it had barely left a mark. The long drag marks from the bell did not continue in a straight line, either. They vanished at a bamboo thicket where the ground turned rocky.
“What kind of animal changes weight as it walks?” Kham asked.
Elder Chan answered without looking at him. “One you don't know yet.”
“If I don't know it, then I have to track it.”
“A real tracker also knows when to stop.”
Kham fell silent. He still remembered his father's words clearly. The forest held more than wild beasts and jungle fever. It held the forest curse, territorial spirits, and hidden things beyond human understanding. Yet Kham still believed everything had a cause, even if that cause was concealed in the darkness.
Before noon, Suea summoned all the workers to gather in front of the accounting house. He announced that they still had to continue working in the eastern forest because the timber boss was rushing to get the logs down to the riverboats. Anyone frightened by what had happened the previous night was free to quit and go home.
No one raised a hand.
Not because they weren't afraid, but because everyone needed the wages.
“Today we'll survey a new route,” Suea said. “Kham, you're coming with me. Ming will stay here and watch the camp.”
Kham hesitated. “I have to look after Saen.”
“Let Elder Chan do it.”
Plai Saen gave a low rumble the moment he heard his name, as if he understood that Kham was about to leave.
Elder Chan met Kham's eyes. “Go on. I won't let anyone touch him.”
Kham hesitated for a moment longer before taking the double-barreled shotgun hanging beside the accounting house. Suea handed it to him reluctantly.
“Ever fired one?”
“I've seen my father fire one.”
“Then don't point the muzzle at anyone else, and don't shoot unless you can see your target clearly.”
Elder Chan walked past them and continued, “A hunter's rules go beyond that.”
The old man put shells into his belt pouch, then pointed toward the forest.
“One: Don't lead people who know the way better than you. Two: Don't separate from the group without a reason. Three: Don't shoot at anything you can't see. Four: Don't eat fruit you don't recognize. Five: If you hear someone calling from the forest, don't answer.”
Ming, who had been listening, grimaced. “What about rule six, Elder?”
Elder Chan stared at him. “If the forest tells you to turn back, turn back. Don't think you're better than the forest.”
Kham slung the shotgun over his shoulder. “Are these rules for animals or ghosts?”
“For people,” Elder Chan replied. “Most animals kill because they're hungry. People kill because they want what you have.”
Seven men set out from the camp: Suea, Elder Chan, Kham, Ming, and three other workers. They followed an old elephant trail into the eastern forest. The sound of axes from the camp gradually faded, leaving only insects and leaves scraping against one another.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. Kham began to relax as he watched for trees marked with cuts and piles of earth that looked like old routes for dragging logs. But Elder Chan stopped every time he heard a branch snap, even when the sound was so far away that no one else could hear it.
At noon, they found the ruins of an abandoned shack beside a stream. Fire had consumed the roof, leaving only blackened wooden posts. A length of old rope hung beside one of them, with a tiny bell tied to it.
Plai Saen had not come with them, but Kham still felt as if he could hear the elephant calling from far away.
“Did people used to live here?” he asked.
“Some log haulers used to stay here,” Elder Chan replied.
“Then where did they go?”
“Home.”
“The whole group went home and left their things behind?”
Elder Chan did not answer.
Kham moved closer to the shack. He saw long scratches on one of the posts, like claw marks, and a black stain clinging to the dirt below. He bent down to examine it, but Suea grabbed his arm.
“Don't touch it.”
“It looks like the mark at the camp.”
“I said don't touch it.”
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out from the trees behind them.
Bang!
A large flock of birds burst into the air. One of the workers fell to the ground, blood running from his upper arm. The bullet had missed him by barely an inch.
“Down!” Suea shouted.
Another shot followed. The bullet buried itself in the trunk above Kham's head, spraying splinters of bark across his face.
Kham crouched behind a stump, clutching the shotgun, his heart pounding. This time there were no ghosts and no bells—only men hiding in the forest, deliberately shooting at them.
“Timber thieves,” Elder Chan whispered. “They probably think we're carrying the workers' wages.”
Suea motioned for the workers to split off to the left. Kham studied the tree line and noticed a thin wisp of smoke drifting behind a rattan thicket. He saw two figures moving below ground level.
“There are three of them,” Kham said. “One behind the rubber tree, and two in the stream gully.”
Suea turned to him. “How do you know?”
“The smoke's drifting against the wind, and the rattan leaves aren't moving together.”
Another shot rang out. A man charged from the stream gully with a knife in his hand. Kham raised the shotgun at once, but didn't pull the trigger. He waited until he could see the target clearly, just as Elder Chan had taught him, then fired into the ground beside the man's feet.
The gunshot made the thief freeze. Suea and the workers closed in and struck him down with the backs of their axes.
The other two tried to run. Elder Chan fired into the air to scare them off, not at their bodies.
“Stop! There's a cliff that way!”
The thieves didn't listen. They vanished into the trees. A terrible scream rose from the deep ravine, followed by the sound of several branches snapping. Then everything fell silent.
They bandaged the injured worker. Kham helped hold the cloth tightly against the wound while Suea tied up the captured thief.
“He didn't fall off the cliff,” Elder Chan said softly.
Kham turned to him. “Then what was that sound?”
The old man glanced toward the abandoned shack. “The voice of someone who crossed into forbidden ground.”
No one mentioned the thieves on the way back. They hurried until they reached camp before dark. But as they approached the sleeping quarters, they heard an elephant's trumpet split the air.
Plai Saen stood facing the forest behind his pen. The chain around his ankle had broken into two pieces. Elder Chan lay crumpled beside a post, blood running from his forehead.
Kham ran to his elephant companion without thinking.
“Saen!”
Plai Saen turned, but refused to let Kham come closer. He pushed him away with his trunk and stared into the darkness beneath the takhian tree.
There, Kham saw tracks identical to those from the previous night.
But this time, the tracks stopped beside Elder Chan.
Kham knelt to examine the old man's wound. “Who hurt you, Elder Chan?”
Elder Chan slowly opened his eyes and gripped the hem of Kham's shirt.
“Don't follow it...”
“Who is it?”
“Someone whose face you should never see.”
A bell rang once from deep in the forest.
Jingle...
Plai Saen stepped in front of Kham and Elder Chan. His massive body trembled, but he stood his ground and did not retreat.
Kham raised the shotgun to his shoulder and looked through the sights toward the black shadow behind the takhian tree.
He couldn't see the person's body.
But he saw a pair of pale eyes staring back at him.
Kham's finger touched the trigger, just before Elder Chan's warning echoed in his mind.
Don't shoot at anything you can't see.
So Kham slowly lowered the gun.
The shadow vanished with the sound of footsteps dragging through the leaves, and the bell rang after it as it disappeared into the darkness.
That night, Kham sat watch over Elder Chan in front of the sleeping quarters. The shotgun rested across his knees, and a shaman's knife was tucked at his waist. Plai Saen stood guard in front of his pen, refusing to sleep.
For the first time, Kham admitted to himself that his father might not have been wrong about everything.
In this forest, his own two hands might save him from wild beasts and evil men.
But there were still things that refused to let themselves be seen so easily.
And one day, he might have to choose whether to shoot one—or let it follow his tracks all the way to the end.