Last of the Breed

Chapter 26

Dark were the forests, dark and still. Now it was snowing again, a thick, heavy snow falling steadily, and there was no other sound but that of falling snow, a whisper, faint yet discernible.

Two days ago he had crossed the Maymakan River and hidden himself deep in the forest. He had found a shelter of sorts built by some hunter and trapper, a crude, hidden place, long unoccupied but snug.

Approaching the Maymakan he had heard a sound in the sky, and for a moment he had stopped under a tree. This was a region of scattered trees and occasional meadows, some of them half swamp, and there were islands of mountain riding above the forest. He listened. Not one but several planes were flying over the forest. This was the most intensive search yet, and he dared not move until the planes had flown over; then he trotted out and headed for a thicker grove of trees. Other planes were coming, and he knew the Maymakan River’s banks would be guarded.

He had gone not a half mile when he heard another sound, a sharp command. Close against a tree’s trunk, he watched. Below him, not two hundred yards off, a platoon of soldiers was making camp.

He faded back into the forest and went directly away from them for a half mile. When he heard a helicopter, he went under a spruce and crouched in the snow.

They knew where he was. No such search would be permitted unless they were quite sure they were close upon him; otherwise they would not expend the manpower or the fuel. He waited where he was.

Had they seen his tracks in the snow? The copter had been flying low enough.

No matter. As soon as that platoon had eaten, they would spread out in a skirmish line and come through the woods. Undoubtedly, there were other such groups searching also. To move now would be foolish, yet when darkness came—

He had crossed the Maymakan on the ice and had come immediately into these woods and found this place. The falling snow would wipe out his tracks, and if he remained still he would make no more. It was unlikely anybody knew of this place, and he would remain hidden as long as possible.

Now it was the third day, and the search seemed to be moving away from his area. His hideout was situated on a point of a low mountain with a forest-choked valley on either side, a stream in the bottom of each. There was a small spring nearby, for whoever had made this camp had chosen well. Food was no worry, for he had the last of that stolen from the black-market warehouse at the old mine. He sat tight, hoping they would not find him.

Soldiers being soldiers, he doubted that any would choose to climb the steep mountainside to get to where he was. They could look up, and it would seem empty and harmless enough. More and more, Joe Mack wondered about the man who had constructed this place. Obviously he had not wanted it found, for it had been artfully concealed. On the evening of the fourth day, Joe Mack started again.

The earth was white with snow, except for occasional patches blown clear by the wind. During his period of hiding out, he had made moccasins again for the third time, but this time he had also worked on something else. When he had killed the last elk, he had cut off the hoofs and made moccasins from them. They would not be easy to use, nor could he move rapidly in them; so they were made simply to slip on over whatever he was wearing. A skilled tracker would probably understand what had been done within a very short time, but to the average man the tracks would simply appear to be another set of elk tracks.

He moved out now across a snowfield wearing the elk hoofs. When he reached a bare patch he slipped them off.

It was a slow, careful day, ending on the slope of a mountain looking down upon a road and a power line.

For over an hour he watched the road. There was but little traffic. He was, he guessed, no more than sixty miles from the sea, although that was probably but a poor estimate. It was time he moved back inland, for his area of operation was becoming too limited. Soon he would be seen, and the worst of it was he might not even realize it at the time. There was too much movement here, and the odds were against him.

He waited, listening. Then he moved down the mountain, staying under cover, and watched as a truck went by, and a car. Listening, he heard no sound, and the snow fell thick and fast. Emerging from the brush, he walked across the road, under the power line, and into the brush. The snow was very deep, except on the road itself, where traffic had packed it down.

Moving north away from the highway, he went up through woods so dense he could see no more than a few feet in any direction. At daylight he bedded down in the bitter cold in a snow cave he dug out of the side of a drift, packing the sides with his hands and cutting a snow block for a door. With his bow he pushed a ventilation hole through the snow overhead, leaving the bow in place to help keep the hole open.

Slipping out of his snow cave, he found two branches of the right length and brought them back into the cave, stripping the foliage to leave the bare poles. These he warmed over a fire, taking his time and bending them slightly from time to time. When they were sufficiently thawed, he bent each into an oval and tied the ends. Then with rawhide strips he had saved, he made a webbing and thongs to cover his toe and instep.

For two days he stayed in the snow cave, improving his snowshoes and simply waiting. The search continued, and from time to time he heard planes and once a helicopter, flying very low over the treetops. There had been much snow, and whatever tracks he had made had long since been covered. On the third evening he came out of his cave, collapsed it, and started off through the woods with a swinging stride, wearing his snowshoes.

Avoiding trails, he kept to the mountainsides, alert for any sound, any search parties. The temperature had fallen, and it was piercingly cold. His body had gradually grown somewhat accustomed to it, although he was careful not to work up a sweat and to avoid falls.

He covered something over twenty miles, as nearly as he could judge, and came to another surfaced road. No tire tracks broke the surface of the snow. For a moment he hesitated. To cross the road meant leaving a trail and the snow was not falling so steadily, yet there was no other way. He crossed the road and went up into the trees.

Despite being well covered, with only slits for his eyes, his face was nevertheless stiff with cold. It had been long since he had been warm, and he was running low on food. He would have to make a kill soon. Meat, and especially fat, was essential.

So far, he had been traveling through thick forest and more often than not at night, yet he had made goggles of bark with narrow slits for vision. These he could tie on to prevent the glare that causes snow blindness.

He was plodding into the forest when he turned to look back. He had heard no sound, but a car had stopped and a man had gotten out to study the tracks. The man looked up and looked right at him. Joe Mack stood within the very edge of the woods, but apparently he was visible, for the man lunged for his car. His intentions were obvious, and Joe Mack whipped an arrow from his quiver. As the man turned, he notched his arrow and let fly. The man’s rifle was coming up when the arrow hit him.

He staggered, grasping at his throat, the rifle discharging as it fell into the snow. Joe Mack ran closer and then stopped and bent his bow a second time, for the man was struggling to sit up. The distance was less than twenty yards now, and the arrow went true.

Quickly, he withdrew his arrows, losing the head from one of them but returning the other to his quiver. Inside, the car was warm. There was a pack and, on the seat, a pistol in a holster. There were cartridges also. These he gathered up. There was an emergency kit of food, and that he took. Suddenly, he stopped.

Stooping, he picked up the dead man and loaded him into the car. Then he put the rifle in the car, too. Its motor was still running. Taking off his snowshoes, he got in behind the wheel and drove off. Somewhere ahead, there would be a village.

He drove steadily. No other cars. The hour was late, and thinking of that, he turned to the dead man beside him and then stopped the car. It needed only a minute to take the wristwatch from the dead man’s wrist and the money, little though it was, from his pocket. He would leave the car and the dead man, and perhaps they would believe he had been robbed by hooligans.

The village, when he came to it, after driving nearly thirty miles, was a mere cluster of houses and sheds. It was obviously some sort of a way station, but there was no power line here. Driving the car into the shadows of a shed, he got out of the car and took his snowshoes, the food supply, and his pack. Then he walked away into the night and the swirling snow.

Tomorrow they would find the car. Hopefully, they would not at once think of him. If there were an autopsy, something he doubted, they would find his arrowhead. Leaving the road, he struck off toward the northwest and into the forest.

All was white and still; snowflakes fell steadily and might cover any trail he left. In any event, it had to be chanced. He headed off into the night, moving at a steady pace.

He now had enough food for a day or two, and he had a pistol. He would use it only in dire necessity. The rifle he had not wanted, as the report of a gun might attract undue attention, and he could hunt as well with his bow and arrows.

An hour after daylight he built a snow cave and crawled into it. Almost at once he was asleep.

The man he had killed had known who he was. Furthermore, he had not hesitated to shoot. A bullet could have disabled or killed him. What worried him was that the man had not hesitated, which implied that he knew who he was and was himself probably involved in the chase.

They were closing in. That was the only way to understand what had happened. They were closing in, and they knew he was in the vicinity. The answer to that was to get out of it as last as possible.

The food he had taken from the car lasted three days, and at the end of that time he killed a deer. He was in the taiga now, and had seen no sign of human life since abandoning the car. He made camp in a snow cave and broiled a venison steak. As he was now moving away from the coast, his shelters in snow caves would be coming to an end. The snow was not so deep further inland.

As evening came, safely in his snow cave, he built a small fire with a reflector to push heat back into the cave, and he pondered.

Alekhin, being driven in another black Volga, came to Topka late on the same afternoon. Peter Petrovich was awaiting him at the office of the collective.

“I have no idea how long it had been there,” he said. “It has been bitter cold, and nobody was stirring around except from the house to the barn. Anyway, the man had been dead for some time.”

They walked across to the car. There was no blood on the car seat, and the body was on the passenger’s side of the car. His rifle had been fired, but there was no cartridge case in the car. The emergency food his men carried was gone, and so were his pistol, his wristwatch, and his money.

“Thieves,” Peter Petrovich said. “They will steal anything they can get their hands on.”

Alekhin opened the dead man’s clothes to look at the wound. It was round and not too large. It could have been made by a bullet, but something was warning him it had not.

On a table in the house he took off the dead man’s coat and shirt. There was a protuberance on the dead man’s back. Through a slit made by his knife, Alekhin saw an arrowhead.

Peter Petrovich was astonished. “An arrow! It cannot be! We have no savages here!”

“You have one. You have the American.”

“The American? You are laughing at me. How could he exist out in the taiga? It is cold, bitter, bitter cold!”

“He exists. He has been here.”

Alekhin thought about it, turning it over in his mind. Evidently, the dead man had seen Makatozi, but had missed his shot.

This had been a good man, one of his best. He had been driving to the coast, heading for Aldoma to interview a man they had taken who might know something.

The man’s pistol was gone and the ammunition for it, yet the rifle had been left.

“You mean this American has been here? You believe he did this?”

Alekhin ignored him. The American had a bow and arrow and did not need or want the rifle. He had killed this man with an arrow, then had bundled him into the car and driven him here. It was true, this road went nowhere except to swing in one great circle or to drive back to Nel’kan. And the American was going north again.

Why had he gone east at all? To meet someone? To get into warmer weather for a few weeks? Had he wished to drive to the coast, he could easily have done so, and the chances were he could have driven on into Nel’kan without anyone the wiser.

Kurun-Uryakh? There was a good flying field there, a good base for aircraft. The American was east of the Maya River and living in the forest. The food he had taken would not last long, so he would have to kill for meat.

“We will get him,” Alekhin said quietly. “We will get him now.”

Suvarov! That fool! Sitting there with all his soldiers, and the American had slipped around them and left them sitting. Alekhin chuckled. Suvarov had failed, but he would get him. He got into the car. “Drive me to the helicopter,” he said.

“Is there anything we can do?” Peter asked.

“Stay out of the way,” Alekhin replied brusquely. “We do not need you.”

The helicopter would fly him to Kurun-Uryakh. There was a gold mine there, he remembered, and they should have communication facilities.

When the helicopter was aloft. Peter Petrovich drove back to Topka. He was a quiet, studious young man who worked quietly at his job and tried to make no waves. He was an able administrator, often impatient with the restraints the bureaucracy placed upon him, but a loyal Soviet citizen. He had read much of America and had often listened to the Voice of America and the BBC, preferring the latter. He did not approve of America. Their government was too confused, too weak. As a Russian he had never known anything but a strong central government. Nor had his parents, grandparents or great-grandparents. Before Lenin and Stalin, there had been the Tsars.

He owned two pairs of blue jeans from America, a few rock and roll records, and even some American books translated into Russian.

He had read everything he could find written by Jack London, and because of that he had strong sympathy for that lone American out there in the taiga. If he had seen him, he would have reported it promptly, but nonetheless, he sympathized with him. Someone had said the man was a Sioux Indian, and Peter Petrovich had read an account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

They said the Indian had been a flyer, and he could not imagine that. It seemed impossible. Yet there were Yakut flyers, and one of his favorite writers was a Yakut. He himself was from Kiev. He had volunteered to come to Siberia because the pay was so much greater and the chances for advancement were better.

He drove back to his building and put the car in the garage. He was thinking of a mug of tea with maybe a touch of vodka to take away the chill.

He opened his door and stepped in, closing the door carefully behind him. Now, to relax! To have his tea, the drop of vodka, and to read!

He turned away from the door and looked into the muzzle of a pistol.

The man holding the gun was the American. He was the Indian. And the gun was very steady; the gray, icy eyes held no mercy.

“First,” the American said, “we will eat.”