Last of the Breed

Chapter 30

When his feet were on the ground, he began tensing all his muscles, stretching, working them to get the blood moving again. Group by group he worked on them, listening meanwhile to the movements about the camp. From the sounds, they were all about him.

He could hear them gathering wood for their fires, hear muttering curses and somebody bemoaning the loss of a comrade. Somebody else spoke in threatening tones of the American. “Wait,” he was saying, “until we get him! I’ll break every bone!”

He dared not stomp his feet to keep warm. He dared make no movement that might be heard. He must remain absolutely still until they bedded down for sleep; then he might dare to escape.

He leaned against the inside of the tree. It was all of four feet wide where he stood, and the hole through which he had ducked was close to the ground, not over three feet high at the opening. A bad place to get out without rubbing the side and being heard.

He was trapped.

He was tired, so very tired. His eyes closed, then opened again. Some warmth from a fire was wafted his way, so very little of it, yet in the piercing cold he could feel it. He heard somebody throw wood on the fire.

One was wishing he was in Khab; another was remembering a girl in Irkutsk.

Joe Mack worked his toes inside the moccasins. He must find more grass to put inside them. He tensed his muscles again and again.

He was cold, cold!

The talk was dying down. They were eating, and some already were getting into sleeping bags for the night.

How many guards would they leave? Certainly one or more. And where would they be stationed? Could he crawl out of the hollow tree without brushing the sides? In the dead silence of night, such a sound could be easily heard and would be recognized instantly as an unnatural sound in the forest.

He heard the voice of the officer again, obviously designating sentries, and then retreating footsteps, wood thrown on the fire, an increased crackle of flames. Through the opening he could see the flickering light.

How long now? How long before the guard became dull with cold and sleep? How long before he himself did?

Again and again he tensed his muscles. He was tired, so very tired! He wanted sleep himself, any kind of rest.

No matter what happened, he was hours from sleep. He felt for his knife, felt for the pistol, to be used only in a dire emergency.

He knelt and peered out. All he could see was firelight flickering on the trunk of the tree opposite.

He waited. Now there was no sound but the fire. If it began to die down the sentry would put on more fuel.

Did he have a stack of it nearby?

Joe Mack waited. He stretched again to get life into his muscles, and then again he dropped to a knee, and this time he thrust his head out far enough to see.

They were bedded down not far from him, with two fires going that he could see and a sentry sitting almost facing him. That was better. He worried more about peripheral vision. His head was in deep shadow and he could watch the sentry. The man was sleepy, and from time to time his eyes closed briefly.

He was a tough-looking, strong young man. His eyes closed again, this time a moment longer than before. Realizing he was growing sleepy the sentry got up and moved around, replenishing the fire. He stood, his back to Joe Mack, staring into the flames.

Dare he try it now? He waited, doubting if he could move fast enough or move without being heard. Finally the sentry sat down again.

The man rubbed his eyes, chuckled at some vagrant thought, and then leaned against the bole of a tree, smiling into the flames.

I hope it’s a good thought, damn you, Joe Mack told himself. Now go to sleep, for God’s sake!

It seemed a long time before the sentry’s eyes closed again. He was a good man, this one, Joe Mack thought. He might doze a little, but not for more than a minute or two.

The sentry’s head nodded, and with scarcely a whisper of sound Joe Mack eased himself from the hollow tree and stood up. Quickly he stepped around the tree, putting it between himself and the sentry.

He faced more bodies in sleeping bags, and another fire, that one some distance off. There was a sentry there, too. The man was standing up, staring into the fire.

That was a mistake many made. To stare into a fire destroys one’s night vision for that important moment when one has to adjust to darkness, looking quickly from the fire toward an enemy out there. A good sentry should sit with his back to a fire, never looking into the flames. Yet it was a temptation and a very natural reaction. One that could cost a man his life.

Joe Mack had been taught that by an old Sioux who was his uncle. The old man had taught him many things, still a warrior at heart, as unreconstructed as Joe Makatozi himself.

He moved suddenly, swiftly, to another tree, melding his shadow into that of the tree.

The sentry went into the darkness to gather fuel, and Joe moved again, further away. The man came back, adding sticks to the fire, his concentration on that, and Joe Mack slipped into the trees and was gone.

Like a ghost, he merged with the forest, moving out, down a slope through the trees, free once more, but for how long?

He had been lucky, so very, very lucky. Such luck could not hold. He must find a way to escape this search, a place to hide.

Some of the soldiers had been raw recruits, young men from cities and towns in Russia. That would not last. He would soon encounter some from the forest, from Siberia or the Urals or from somewhere in the wilderness. He moved off into the darkness, headed west, running steadily along the ghost of a trail.

Westward and north he fled, keeping to the cover of trees whenever possible, using paths only for brief periods and with care. Hunted like a wild animal, he had become as elusive as one. He must, he told himself, be like the mountain lion. In all his years in the mountains, the only lions he had seen had been treed by dogs. They were there; he had seen their droppings and their tracks, occasionally a kill. Of the big cats themselves one rarely caught a glimpse. If they could do it, he could also.

The detachment of troops he had narrowly eluded could not be the only one. At any moment he could encounter more. From each ridge and hilltop he studied the terrain before him, always lying down or crouching in cover, letting his body merge with his surroundings. Only when he was sure nothing awaited him did he advance.

The use of traps had made him wary of them, for Alekhin was somewhere about, and he would understand such things. Scowling, crouched at the base of a tree, he considered that.

Where was Alekhin? Certainly, he would not be idle. His reputation as a manhunter was at stake.

Glimpsing the smoke of a campfire ahead, he turned deeper into the timber, swinging wide around it. On a sparsely forested ridge he looked down and back into the valley of the smoke and saw a cluster of men around two fires.

Soldiers!

He faded into thicker woods and worked his way further west and south before swinging back to the north. He would find the Chersky Mountains somewhere ahead and lose himself in one of the canyons of which he had heard.

Lieutenant Suvarov sat by the fire, studying a map spread out on his knees. As the voice of Colonel Zamatev, he was dealing with officers superior to him in rank, attempting to guide them in a search as Zamatev would want it conducted. He was a tactful young man, and so far had succeeded, although there was at least one officer with whom he dealt who was displeased by Zamatev’s assumption of authority.

Colonel Nicolai Rukovsky was an officer of unquestioned ability. He was also well connected and ambitious. His command was one of the best trained in the Soviet Army, and he was constantly striving to improve it in every respect. As a result he welcomed the chance to take his men into the field on something more than a maneuver.

“You can tell Colonel Zamatev that if he is in the area you suggest we will have him.”

Leaving the Kolyma River well guarded, he started a line of one thousand men, at thirty-yard intervals, to make a sweep of the forest, meadows, and hollows south of the river.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Suvarov suggested, “I believe the interval is too great. This man is like a ghost, sir. He might slip through.”

“Nonsense! Not through my men. They will take him.”

“He’s very elusive, sir.”

Studying the map, Suvarov considered the problem. They had been out for three days now and had advanced more than thirty miles and had seen nothing.

Because of the terrain, the line was considerably further south at its eastern end, and here and there, despite the best efforts of the officers, the thirty-yard interval had proved impossible to maintain. Despite that, Suvarov had to admit the sweep had been thorough. Yet there had been no sign of the man they sought.

A Udehe hunter among them had come to Suvarov. “I see tracks,” he said.

Suvarov looked up impatiently; then recognizing the man, he asked, “Can you show me?”

The Udehe was a skilled tracker. He pointed out something on the ground that Suvarov failed to see and then led him up a long slope through the trees.

The sound of a motor stopped them. It was Colonel Rukovsky. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

“This man has found some tracks. He is very skilled. He says our man came right through here last night.”

“That is impossible,” Rukovsky said. “Our men were camped right up there, stationed all along the ridge.”

The Udehe had gone on ahead. Such discussions were nothing to him. He found the curve of a heel at the edge of some snow. He showed it to Suvarov. “Unty,” he said, “a shoe made of skin. He went up there.” He pointed up toward the campsite.

Getting down from his car, Rukovsky followed, watching. He was fascinated. Most of his life had been lived on an axis that included Moscow, Kiev, and the Crimea. Now he was silent, watching the Udehe with interest.

At the hollow tree the Udehe stopped. Bending over, he peered into the opening and then disappeared inside. Some of the rotting wood on the inside of the trunk had been knocked down and lay on the earth inside the hollow. Rukovsky joined him.

“He here,” the Udehe said, showing them places where the wood had been brushed or broken off. “Climb up there while people look for him.”

Rukovsky swore and turning to Suvarov, he said, “You were right, Lieutenant. This man is elusive.”

He ducked out of the opening and straightening up, brushed off bits of bark and wood. “Came right through us, did he? We shall see about that!”

He glanced at the Udehe. “That’s a good man. Keep him around. We will need him.”

He slapped his thigh with his gloves. “The question is, where did he go? Where is he now?”

“Colonel Zamatev is inclined to think the fugitive is trying to retrace the old route his people may have taken when they migrated over the Bering Strait to America, That would mean he’s going northeast.”

“It would, indeed.” Rukovsky slapped his leg again. “But northeast of here is the Kolyma. A hard river to cross and well guarded. You say this man was a major in the American air force? Then he will be intelligent as well as a good woodsman. I suggest he went west.”

“West, sir?”

“West, of course. The Kolyma is well guarded. If he goes further east he restricts his arc of movement. You say he is a man accustomed to the wilderness. Very well, he will go west. He will try to lose himself in the mountains.”

“Do you suppose he knows our country that well?”

“We must suppose he does. One thing, Lieutenant, never underestimate an enemy!”

“I shall have to communicate with Colonel Zamatev.”

“By all means!” Rukovsky agreed. “Tell him I am prepared to cooperate to the fullest. The man interests me, and I’d like to be present when he is taken.”

Suvarov hesitated, and then tentatively he suggested, “There are others in the field, sir. Comrade Shepilov wants him also, wants him first.”

“Shepilov?” Rukovsky’s face was bland. “Of course! But Colonel Zamatev is GRU is he not? I have every admiration for Comrade Shepilov and wish him success, but we in the military, we must work together, must we not?”

Rukovsky looked toward the soldier; the Udehe was waiting. “Let’s get that man seeking out the trail, Suvarov. He seems to be a good man on a trail.”

“Yes, sir. Comrade Alekhin is in the field, too, sir.”

“Alekhin? And where is he?”

“Nobody knows but Alekhin and perhaps Colonel Zamatev. He reports only to him, but I do know he is very anxious to be the one who takes the American. There is something personal between them.”

“How could that be?”

Suvarov explained about the brief meeting shortly after the American was first taken.

At the car Colonel Rukovsky got out his maps. “Suvarov? Let’s recall our men and transport them west. Let us make a base of Oymyakon.” He folded the map. “He covers country, this American. How does he do it?”

“He is an Indian. Some of them are said to be great runners. The man was an athlete.”

“Come, Lieutenant, let’s move.” He turned and glanced at Suvarov. “Let’s make this an army operation, Lieutenant. I’ve flown over those mountains and know them a little. We will take him ourselves.”

“Colonel Zamatev will appreciate your cooperation.”

“He shall have it. This American of yours intrigues me. I’d like to take him.” He paused, making room for Suvarov to get into the car. “Shepilov, is it? A very capable man, Lieutenant, but never very friendly to the army. Never friendly at all.”

On a rocky point under some low-growing, wind-torn spruce, Joe Mack squatted on his heels looking down the valley. At the distance he could see very little, only that the soldiers were being recalled. He had seen the car, even heard it in the cold air.

An officer, probably, a commanding officer taking his men from the field.

Why?

He had eluded them. Had they discovered how? The Russians were good players of chess, and now they contemplated another move. There must be a reason for suddenly leaving the field. They would not be quitting the chase, so they must be changing direction. Had they guessed what he was attempting?

When he got where he was going, would they be there, waiting?