Last of the Breed

Chapter 29

He stumbled along on feet numb from cold. The snow was thin over the frozen earth, and the trees were scattered, offering only a little shelter from the wind. He was leaving tracks now, but he could not take the time to cover his trail. What he needed now, desperately, was food and shelter.

The icy cold had numbed his mind. He was not thinking clearly. He had to plan, he had to be evasive. He must leave some traps to slow them up. He must frighten them into caution.

If only he could be warm! Just once again!

He heard the wolves snarling and fighting before he saw them. They had pulled down a deer and were tearing at it. He shouted and they looked around at him. He tried to wave them away, but they were hungry, too. There were three of them, big wolves and in no mind to give up their kill.

He shouted again and ran at them. They backed up, snarling. At any other time they would have run off, but meat was scarce in the taiga.

He notched an arrow with stiff, clumsy fingers. He let fly at the largest of the wolves, and the wolf was no more than twenty-five yards off. The arrow took him in the shoulder and he sprang back, biting at it and snarling. The others backed off a little as he closed in. Now he had the pistol out. He did not wish to waste ammunition, but this was a time when he would chance both the sound of the gun and the loss of the cartridge.

The one he had shot with the arrow was dying now. He walked forward a few more steps. He had never fired this pistol, but he had been a dead shot since childhood, when everybody had used guns in the mountains of his birth. As he moved in, they backed off. One made a running charge at him, a bluff only. When he continued to advance, they retreated again.

He retrieved his arrow and then cut meat from the freshly killed deer, backing off, watching them, the meat in one hand, the pistol in the other.

When he had gone a mile or two into the forest, he found a place in the lee of a gigantic fallen tree. Finding some broken stubs of branches and some heavy bark, he put them together on the snow to form a base for his fire. From under a deadfall that lay across the larger tree he took some hanging strings of bark and crumbled them in his hands. From the trunks of trees nearby he broke dead suckers, small branches that had started to grow from the trunks and then died.

With a bow and drill, he started his fire, blowing it gently into flame. Then with other broken pieces of wood lying about, he built up the floor for his fire and, adding bark, coaxed a larger flame into being. He had been tempted to eat the meat raw, but there are often parasites in raw meat that cooking will destroy, so he roasted the meat on sticks over the fire.

When he had eaten, he got up and gathered broken branches for a lean-to shelter. It was hurriedly and clumsily made, but sufficient for the night to come. He paused to warm his hands over the fire and then to hold warm hands over his ears and nose. He tried to remember what month it was and failed. The days had passed into weeks and the weeks into months. Spring was at least a month away, he decided, and perhaps more.

A little warmth and a little food and he felt much better. Man needs so little, he thought, yet he begins wanting so much.

Gathering fuel, he glanced at the mountain ridge opposite. In this area of relatively low mountains it was higher than most, and the side facing him was very steep. Above all, there was snow on the mountaintop, quite a lot of it in fact. A curling lip of snow hung over the edge, and the steep slope below was a litter of fallen trees and boulders. He checked his distance and decided that in the event of an avalanche, he was beyond its reach, but not by very much.

He built up a screen for his fire to reflect heat back into his corner away from the wind. Then he made a bed of spruce boughs and gathered more fuel. It would be a cold night.

Cold it was, even with the fire, bitter cold. He added fuel and thought of Natalya, so far away now, and hoped she was warm and away from the wind.

He shook his head, puzzled at himself and at her. No words of love had been spoken, no promises made, none asked for. Only that he would try to return for her, and she had never questioned his reason. It had just been something between them, an understanding from the beginning. Now, beside the fire, he tried to remember at what point it had come about, and he could not find one. Simply, it had been there, a quiet understanding of something between them.

He had never been in love and, different from most men, had never even thought he was.

Nights came suddenly here and lasted long. It was dark now, and his eyes could no longer reach across the little cove to where the sheer mountain waited with its lips of snow. Huddled against the bole of the fallen tree, he tried to soak up warmth from the fire, but unless he almost hung over it, little heat could reach him.

He gnawed on a bone left from his roast of venison and dozed fitfully. He was tired, so very tired!

Cold was the day when finally it came, a feeble light of pale yellow through the gray. No sun in sight, no warmth, only a greater visibility. A low wind came through the sparse trees, whining among the rocks and across the icy ridges. Joe Mack shivered and fumbled to warm his fingers in their mittens. He peered through the rocks at a small meadow, desperate to see some kind of game. He saw nothing.

He listened, but heard no sound of man or motor. He eased from behind the rocks and went down a slight slope, walking an oblique route of his own choosing. There were no trails here, no sign of men.

Instinct as well as intelligence told him a massive search was on, that every step now must be taken with care. They had found his trail, and men had died. The soldiers who sought him would be all the more ready to kill, and those others, alerted he might be coming, would not be trusting.

Open country now, so he began to trot. Swinging along easily, smoothly. His endurance had grown with survival. The meat had brought back his old strength, but he took no chances, placing his feet carefully, wary of ice on the rocks and of black ice, present but not so visible. For an hour he ran, weaving among rocks, following dim animal paths beside small streams, and finally moving into the forest again.

Here he slowed to a walk and unlimbered his bow. Again, he needed meat. He always needed meat. He still had some of the tea taken from the young engineer or whatever he had been. That night, huddled over a small fire, he forced his cold brain to think.

What would they do now? They had an idea of where he was going, and they knew how he moved, something of what he was prepared to do. They would try to be ready for him in the north. He could expect a more careful search. They would be watching along the Kolyma. Beyond lay the Chersky Mountains.

Baronas had talked much of those mountains, which he had never seen but of which he knew a good deal. They were named for a Lithuanian who had been exiled to Siberia after the Polish uprising of 1863. Chersky had made a study of the region and had later been sent back by the Academy of Sciences to continue his studies. Baronas had read his books and had talked to some younger men who had worked with him. Chersky had died in 1892 somewhere in the Kolyma River region.

One of the things Baronas had told him was of the great canyons in the Chersky region through which the Indigirka and Kolyma rivers flowed, canyons said to be more than six thousand feet deep.

Suppose he fled to those canyons? Lost himself in one of them until the chase was over? Until they had given him up for dead? Or would they ever give up?

Not Zamatev, not Alekhin.

They would come for him there or anywhere; somehow they would find him.

He knew in his heart they would find him one day, and then it would be just them. They would have to face him somewhere out there in the wilderness, man to man.

He was dreaming. They had armies. They did not depend just upon themselves. They could cover miles with their choppers, studying each mile, looking for tracks. Sooner or later they would catch him in the open. They would hunt him down like a dog.

So far he had survived, at first because they did not believe he could and because he was one man alone in all the vastness that was Siberia.

Now he must make a choice. To go ahead was to go into a trap. By this time they had a general idea of where he was and what he intended, so he must confuse them, do something to throw them off the trail.

The canyons might be it, for they were west as well as north. It would be a change of direction.

Or Magadan…

Magadan, a town on the sea, and not too far away. He shook his head. That would be foolish. He would be exposed there. That is, he would know none of the small things residents know, the simple things of everyday living. He would make mistakes and reveal himself.

To even approach Magadan would put him in more populated areas where he must pass in review before more people, and a people inclined to suspicion who knew he was around. Even with his new shirt and the suit he had folded away he would be in danger.

Crouched on a mountainside, his cheeks stiff with cold, he studied the ragged pines along the farther ridge, and the hollow valley that lay between. Death was there and all about him, death from men, yes, and death from cold. If he slipped and broke a leg, he would freeze within minutes.

The icy cold was waiting for the slightest misstep to kill. They were seeking him out, trying to find him, and he must use the land, turn it against them.

He was in the land of the Tungus, the Reindeer People. Yet he had seen none of them as yet. He could come upon them at any time.

He moved along under the pines, looking again across the valley toward the bleak ridges, the massed battalions of the other pines where darkness and shelter might wait or enemies to kill or maim him. Snow crunched under his moccasins, and he came out from under the pines and went down the hill into the icy chill of the hollow. A cold wind stirred, and he felt its added chill.

Each step he chose with care, trusting to nothing. To his left, the end of the cuplike hollow rose up; to his right, it spilled out into another, longer valley. Nothing moved within his sight, and he walked across the hollow and started to climb the ridge and suddenly stopped, brought up short by a crevasse, a deep fracture of the rocky floor that dropped away into some unimaginable depth. A misstep here…

One long step would take a man across. There was crusted snow on the far side, crusted snow over rocks. He took the step and then turned around and, with his knife, loosened a rock or two under the snow crust. When he went on he had left a death trap for whoever followed his trail.

A tall man might try to step over, a shorter man might take a small leap. Well, they were hunting him; let them pay the cost.

Lean as a mountain wolf, his face haggard with cold and exhaustion, he climbed the icy slope to the lure of the sheltering pines. He hunted a place to shelter himself, and the sky overhead danced with the weird green and yellow of the northern lights. He crunched through the snow, eyes seeking a place, finding nothing. The trunks of the pines were black against the whiteness of the snow. Wind moaned through the trees, and they bent their tops before the wind. He crouched against the bole of a tree, searching the land before him. His eyes took in everything: the silent avenues among the pines, the blowdown resting, half fallen, suspended by only one slim branch. Soon it would fall and drop across the trail.

It was a moment before he realized what he was seeing. Beyond the edge of the pines lay a long valley and a slope, and coming down that slope in a staggered skirmish line were soldiers.

Not ten, not twenty, but at least a hundred of them, scattered widely out and coming toward him, twenty to thirty yards apart, each carrying a rifle ready for action.

For a moment he did not move, but lay still, watching their advance. It was slow, cautious, but covered a wide front. Behind them, separated by at least one hundred yards from each other, were two officers.

It was that queer half light that often existed at such latitudes. Fascinated, he watched them come; then, rising, he faded into the forest behind him, careful to step where the snow had been blown from the frozen earth. Now he needed a hiding place or somehow to evade them. He glanced back again. Farther up the valley another skirmish line was emerging from the trees. They were making a careful sweep of the country, and he was directly in its path.

Slowly, he retreated into the forest, looking carefully about him.

Nothing. No place to hide, just the slim dark trunks of trees, with every once in a while a big, older tree. Climb one? The branches were too far apart, too sparse. Bury himself in the snow? In most places the snow cover was too thin to allow it.

He watched the advancing soldiers, still some distance off. Some seemed to be looking carefully about, others simply marched ahead, eyes on what lay before them.

He turned and ran, swiftly and silently, leaping the crevasse when he reached it. Suddenly he was remembering something seen, a slim hope!

Darting into the woods, he looked left and right. The cluster of big old trees! He ran among them, avoiding snow patches. The one he remembered was there, a huge old lightning-struck tree, its top long since fallen. He crawled into the hollow and then stepped on a fallen slab and reached up, grasping for a handhold. It was pitch dark, and somewhere above him was a small circle of lighted sky. He found a hold, tested it, and tugged himself up; then he put his back against one side and his foot and a knee against the other and began inching his way higher. Many times, in mountain climbing, he had climbed rock chimneys by the same means. Now edging higher and higher he came to a place where he could go no further. He felt around for a handhold, found one, and held himself still.

How long could he remain there? His position was relatively secure for the moment. He was, he guessed, some thirty feet above the ground, but it might be further.

No sound. Were they coming? Suddenly he heard a wild cry of fear and a rushing, falling sound, some distance off. Then in the still, cold air a series of commands, angry shouts, and warnings.

Somebody had fallen into his trap.

He waited, finding a better resting place for his foot.

Please, he whispered, let them come soon! Surprisingly, it was warmer here, away from the wind.

Now he heard them. They were, some of them at least, coming through the forest. He heard a sharp command, then a crunch of feet. Somebody was looking into the hollow tree!

Somebody was right below him. He held his breath and prayed no rotting wood would fall into the hollow below him.

He heard a grunt and then a denial, as of someone saying there was nothing there.

Now they would move on. He could get down from his precarious position and escape.

Suddenly came a sharp command and then a sound of breaking wood. Another such sound. They were building a fire! They were going into camp!

For a moment he was choked by sheer horror. He could not remain where he was. He could not remain cramped in that position much longer. He must get down; he must move, or he would freeze.

He could hear them talking among themselves; there were more sounds of breaking wood and then the crackle of a fire.

Slowly, carefully, he began to ease himself back down the inside of the tree.