Last Of the Breed (1986) Page 10

  Returning at night to the Baronas’s, he secured his bearskin and the rest of his gear.

  “You needn’t go,” Baronas said. “We enjoy your company. It isn’t often we have visitors, and I haven’t talked to an American for nearly forty years. Not since the War.”

  “Tomorrow night,” he promised. “Tonight I have work.”

  Several people came to the doors of their lodges to watch him pass. He merely nodded and went on about his business. He knew that during his absence his presence would be discussed, and he did not wish to interfere by being anywhere about during the discussions.

  Returning to his cave, he packed firewood and stored it, working hard, clearing some of the deadfalls from near the trail he would use. In the process he found another entry to the cave, well hidden behind the trunk of a huge old tree. He carried in spruce boughs for a bed and found a place for his fire where the smoke would be dissipated by the foliage.

  His cave was a mere overhang of rock, with the deep crevasse in front of it, half the front covered by the upthrust of rock through a crack of which he had first entered. The rest of the cave was hidden by the thick stand of tangled larch across the crevasse.

  He had shelter from overhead, shelter from the wind, and a hidden corner of the cave that a fire would heat. As time went on he could make it more secure against cold. Sooner or later his neighbors would know where he was living, but he did not intend to show them, except, perhaps, Stephan Baronas and Talya.

  Perhaps he could hide out the winter here, and in the spring, when the search for him had run its course, he might escape. On the third day he hunted.

  The vegetation here was a mixture of the Trans-Baikal through which he had traveled and the Far Eastern region, similar, he supposed, to what grew in Manchuria. Working his way up the low mountains, he sighted and stalked a goral, a small curly-haired antelope. Later, coming back into the larch, he killed three large grouse. In each case he made his kills with the sling, and the grouse, after he struck one down, seemed in no way frightened. He was able to kill two more before they flew away.

  He returned to the community under the trees and hung up the goral, keeping its hide. The grouse he took to the Baronas’s and ate with them.

  When he ran his trap line, he discovered that eleven of the more than thirty snares had paid off. He had taken two ermine, five squirrels, and four blue foxes. It was a good catch, but he reset the snares and deadfalls and then returned to his hideout, where he skinned out the hides and kept some of the flesh to bait his traps. That night he began his lessons in speaking Russian, learning the simplest things first, greetings and replies, and a number of terms: hot and cold, near and far, and high and low, and the terms for forest, swamp, river, lake, pool, house, and town.

  “Tomorrow,” Baronas commented, “I start for Aldan. I shall be gone several days. We are taking a bundle of furs for Wulff, and there is a man there who buys furs and does not ask questions.”

  “I have furs to contribute to Wulff and some to sell.”

  “Good! I thought as much. Bring them over very early, and we will see what we can do.”

  Next morning before dawn he brought the furs to Baronas. Handing them to him, he said, “Hurry back. I have much to learn.”

  Two others were going with Baronas, a short, heavyset man named Botev and his partner, Borowsky. When they had disappeared from sight, Talya said, “I’ve coffee on. Will you come in?”

  When he was seated with a cup in his hand, she said, “You have done well with the trapping.”

  “As a boy I knew little else. It was a way of my people.”

  “I do not know your people. “

  “We were a nation of warriors,” he said simply. “We had conquered more territory than Charlemagne. Perhaps, had the white man not come, we could have conquered it all.” He paused. “There were, of course, the Blackfeet. They were warriors, also.”

  “You were defeated by the white man?”

  “By our own ignorance and by our customs. The Indian thought of a battle as a war. He did not think in terms of campaigns. It was a handicap. Also, there was the matter of supplies. We had no extended plan. The white man thought in campaigns, of a series of battles until an enemy was defeated. He did not fight for glory, but for victory. The Indian could not adjust, not in time.

  “Nor was he accustomed to fight in winter. When the white man attacked his winter camps he was not prepared and was driven into the snow.”

  They were silent, and then she said, “And when spring comes, what will you do?”

  “Return to my country.”

  “It must be beautiful, your country. We hear much of it, and I would like to see it, but I would be afraid of the gangsters.”

  He chuckled. “I lived there many years and I never saw one. There are thieves, dope smugglers, the rats that always live on the fringes of what we wish to be a civilization. They are something that exists and must be coped with, just as you do here in Soviet Russia. “

  He paused. “My country is beautiful, much of it. We have our sore spots, as do all countries, but that is where I belong.”

  “Maybe I can go there sometime. I would like that.”

  He looked at her. “You could go. If you could leave Russia they would welcome you. Maybe Russians will be free to travel someday, too. All things change. We would welcome Russians as visitors. In the old days many Russians settled in America and became good farmers, good citizens.”

  He got up. “I have much to do. May I come for coffee again?”

  “When you wish.”

  At the door he paused. “It is better, I believe, if no one knows exactly where I live, except for you and your father, if you wish to know.”

  “Perhaps.”

  A rough voice interrupted. “So? You have a visitor!”

  It was the man Peshkov.

  “Yes,” Joe Mack said.

  Peshkov scowled. “I do not know you.”

  Joe Mack suddenly felt good. “Oh, but you will! You will!”

  Chapter 13

  Peshkov stared at Joe as he muttered a few words to Talya. He was a powerfully built man with thick eyebrows and rather protuberant eyes. He had a way of lowering his head and glaring from under his brows.

  Joe Mack understood the sense of the words and suddenly realized why the language had a familiar sound. Had those Lithuanian miners’ children he had known been speaking Russian? If so, he might recall a few words.

  Peshkov spoke to Talya, speaking rapidly, irritably. Her reply was quiet but firm. Of this exchange he understood nothing, but he knew trouble when he saw it, and he stood where he was, making no move to leave.

  Finally, obviously angry, Peshkov strode away, muttering.

  “Trouble?” Joe Mack asked.

  “He’s a disagreeable beast,” she said, “but we need him. He is one of our best hunters.”

  “He does not like me.”

  “He likes nobody. He would like to take command, but it is my father to whom the people look.”

  “And to you, I think.”

  She shrugged. “Peshkov wants to give the orders. He also wants me,”

  “I suspected as much.” Joe Mack turned to go. “If you have trouble I will handle it. “

  During the week that followed he saw nothing of Peshkov, but nothing of Talya, either. He killed a wapiti and brought in more than three hundred pounds’ of meat. His traps yielded well, and in his cave he made two packs, one for Wulff and the other to be sold for whatever the furs would bring. There was, he understood, a black market in furs.

  Now, with time in which to do so, he prepared his skins carefully, as he had been taught to do. Each time he met any of the people of the commune he tried his Russian upon them. It was true, as he soon became aware, that the miners’ children had been speaking Russian, and a few words came back to him now. Occasionally he would hear a word spoken by one of the village people that he recognized. In school the children had talked English, but among themselves they re
verted to the tongue spoken at home.

  In the third week he left the stream where he had been trapping and went up the mountain to the north and set his snares in the headwaters of several small streams there. It was an area that did not seem to have been trapped, far from the village and where he found no tracks of men or any sign that anyone had ever been there before.

  His take was rich. From the first setting of the snares he had success. Squirrels, Baronas had told him, were much in demand, and he found them in numbers. He also caught ermine, blue fox, and marmot, whose fur was much sought after. Several times he saw tracks of large bear; from their paw prints it was obvious they were some type of grizzly.

  Squatting beside a stream one late afternoon, he considered his position. If he could sell furs he might accumulate a little money to pay his way, if need be. He was progressing with his learning of Russian. Meanwhile he had learned that many of the aborigine population, and he might pass as one, spoke little if any Russian. The Koriak, Yakut, and Lamut peoples had only a smattering of the language. Before spring he must concoct a story he could tell, a cover story that would be plausible enough to be accepted. At least until they had time to think, and by that time he could be gone.

  Kyra Lebedev was a beautiful woman who made every effort to appear plain. She had discovered long ago that beautiful women did not advance as rapidly as the less beautiful. Good looks were an asset in a man’s march to success, but not so with a woman. Men suspected you had no brains, and other women were jealous. Success was important to her, and she had quickly taken the measure of Comrade Shepilov. He was an intelligent man, but he was lacking in energy. He wanted success and expected it to come to him. He advanced steadily until suddenly he found himself moving forward alongside Arkady Zamatev.

  From the first he recognized the threat. Shepilov was lazy, sometimes careless, an undeviating Party man but one who liked good living and made sure that it came his way.

  Zamatev ignored the trappings and the benefits. He did each job thoroughly and efficiently. His bureau functioned with fewer helpers than any other. Every job given to him was done with speed and finesse. There was less waste in his department than in any other in central Siberia, and he had carefully weeded out the alcoholics and the timeservers. Kyra Lebedev saw that Zamatev was going somewhere, and she determined to go along with him.

  Was she in love with him? Looking into the small mirror in her hotel room she smiled at that. She was not. Did she believe in love at all? She shrugged. She respected Zamatev, and she admired his cool, intelligent way of doing things. One always knew where one stood with Zamatev. Everything fitted; everything fell into place. He made no promises, and she knew she did not fit into his plans for the future. He did fit into hers.

  She quite understood what was in his mind, but she also knew that if she wished to reach the higher echelons of government he was her ticket. So, never to demand anything, never to expect anything, never to get in the way, but always to understand, to be helpful and as efficient as he was himself.

  She did not know whether Zamatev would achieve his ambitions or not. In fact, she did not believe he would. Such men made their superiors uneasy. Not that they might fear his success, but that his very efficiency and drive might force them to move faster than they wanted. The men in staff positions in any army were rarely there for their skills, but because they were easy to get along with. Men in command did not want abrasive types. They had come to the top, and now they wished to relax. They wanted men who were socially acceptable and just reasonably efficient.

  Zamatev might get somewhere. Occasionally such men did. Gorbachev had done it; others almost had, but they failed by being a little too sure of themselves.

  Nevertheless, Arkady Zamatev was on his way and he would go far, and Kyra intended to go with him until such a time as she should cut loose and be on her own. If Zamatev recaptured the American, it was positive that he would go on to Moscow. So the American must be retaken.

  Wulff was the man in charge here. She knew very little about him that was good. His department was administered but poorly; nonetheless, he was well connected and seemed solidly in control. It was not the first such situation she had seen. His department created no problems for his superiors. The results might not be the best but whatever happened in his area was confined to that area, and no one wished to create problems where none seemed to exist. Discipline was harsh, according to rumor, and there were other rumors that his superiors profited nicely from the situation. Whatever else might be said of him, Wulff was in control, and if she was to get cooperation she must move with care.

  Wulff knew Arkady Zamatev and would be wary of crossing him. What she sought was cooperation and a hands-off attitude from Wulff. He was not, she had gathered, an ambitious man. He had what he wanted and wished it to remain as it was. He would not, she was sure, want anybody rocking the boat when it was moving so smoothly.

  He received her sitting behind a table. He was a fat but solid-looking man, partially bald, with round, wary eyes. His lips smiled, but his eyes measured her for problems.

  “I have heard nothing,” he assured her, after she had explained, “and I would have heard. Of course, it is a large area, and if you are right and he has come this way, we must find him.”

  “I would prefer not to disturb you or your department,” she suggested. “I want to be free to move about. I believe I know what must be done.”

  “Of course, but you must be prepared. It is very wild out there. It would be best, I believe, if you remained here in the city. We are remote, but it can be very pleasant, and we would enjoy entertaining you.” He smiled. “My wife would be particularly happy, as we have too few visitors.”

  “I should like to meet her, but there is much to do, and I wish to be,” she smiled, “where the action is.”

  She was, Wulff thought, a striking woman. She worked for Zamatev? Was there anything going on there, he wondered? Well, why not? Arkady was a single man. But hard, he thought, very hard.

  “Is there any word from hunters? Prospectors? Engineers? I mean, of anything unusual? Any strangers? Any thefts?”

  He smiled, shaking his heavy head. “Nothing. We have thought of all that, and we’ve been out around the country.” He smiled again. “As you have.”

  Her smile was a little tight. “Flying over the country we saw a place — “

  “I know,” he said, “my men were there some time ago.” He did not want strangers nosing about, and the sooner he got rid of this one the better.

  She was no fool. This one was sharp, unusually intelligent. The sooner he was rid of her the better.

  “Who is this man you seek? An American, I hear?”

  “I have heard that, too,” she replied. She had detected some uneasiness and decided Wulff did not want strangers looking about. Well, that was his business. Her business was to find and recapture Major Makatozi. Yet he was no fool, and he must already have the basic facts. “He is a flyer who has information we wish to have. It is as simple as that. It is very important that we capture him at once. “

  “It has been a long time now,” Wulff said. “He is probably dead.” He paused. “The watch along the border has been very careful. My men have gone into every town, every village, every camp all along the Amur. The army is uncommonly alert. If he is alive, we will find him.”

  “It would help,” she said, “if I found him. Or if he was turned over to me, I can assure you Colonel Zamatev would be most grateful.”

  “Of course. I am an admirer of the Colonel. I wish him every success.” He hitched around in his chair. “His capture might mean a lot to the Colonel. It might even take him to Moscow. “

  A move, Wulff thought, that would please a lot of people. Zamatev was too sharp, too hard to deal with. Or perhaps the trouble was that he would not deal at all. If he failed to recapture this American, he might be with them always. That in itself was incentive enough. Colonel Zamatev had many admirers, but it would be easier to admire him
if he were in Moscow.

  “How he ever got such a man is beyond me. The GRU — “

  “It was Colonel Zamatev who arranged it” — she smiled — “as he arranges many things.”

  Wulff stood up. The interview was over. “If I can help, call on me, but I believe your American is dead.

  “Where would he go? How could he live? Winter is here, and that is a vast wilderness out there. Believe me, comrade, I have traveled it. When I was younger — “

  “This man is different. He is a Red Indian.”

  Wulff was astonished. An Indian? He had believed they were all dead. He had not heard of any Indians since he was a boy and saw those American movies. Exciting stuff, too.

  “How could that be? I understood he was an officer in the American air force?”

  “He’s that, too.” Kyra turned toward the door. “What you must understand is that he is a man who knows how to live in the taiga.”

  Outside, Kyra was irritated. Nothing had come of that. What would Wulff do? Would he cooperate? Or try to take the American himself? Or would he work with Shepilov? She drew her belt tight against the wind. He would do what was expedient for Wulff.

  Stegman was waiting with a car. He was a lean but powerful man of some forty years who carried himself like a man ten years younger. He was one of Zamatev’s best men.

  “Nothing definite,” she told him. “Whatever is done we must do ourselves.” She paused. “Does he know you?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  “I will walk. But what I want is to find out what Comrade Wulff does next. It could be very helpful.”

  Stegman got in the car and drove away around the block; then he parked some distance off where he could watch the door. Kyra Lebedev went back to the hotel and getting out the maps she had brought, spread them out on the bed. She was dismayed. Even she, who had lived and worked in Siberia, was always amazed at its sheer size. Now, thinking of finding one man in all that vastness, she was appalled.