There was talk between them then, but his few words were not enough. When they spoke slowly and directly to him, he could understand if the words were simple. Much he had learned from the miners’ children returned to him, and Stephan Baronas was a patient teacher. But when they conversed among themselves, he could catch only a word from time to time. Yet it was warm and comfortable, and he did not wish to move.
The comfort was a danger. He must return to the chill of his own camp, where he would not be so much at his ease as here, where the very cold would serve to keep him alert.
Twenty-nine people, they had told him. He had met no more than half a dozen, and there was little moving about. He knew there was discussion of his presence and argument between those who feared the trouble he would attract and those who valued the meat he could contribute.
Joe Mack got to his feet. “I go,” he said, and went out without looking back.
Outside in the dark the wind was raw and cold. The earth was frozen. It was unlikely anyone was watching at this hour and in the cold, but he was wary. When he arrived back at his camp in the rocky hideaway, he built a small fire and prepared his bed. He must make warmer clothing or he would freeze. Yet cold as it was, his health was good, and he lived on the meat he killed. It was a wild life he was living now, but a life to which he was born. He banked his fire and rolled in his bearskin and stared up at the rock overhead. Soon he must be going. He was a danger to them here. A little longer, to learn more of the language, just a little longer.
His eyes had closed, and now they opened again. Was that truly why he was staying on? Or was it that he needed people more than he had believed?
An icy wind whined through the trees, and a branch cracked in the cold. He pulled his bearskin snug about him and tried to hide his head from a trickle of wind from somewhere. He needed to warm the stone before sleeping, to warm it with his fire; this he must do before he slept at night. He reached an arm from the warmth of his bed to push another stick into the coals of his fire. He thought of the rocky cliffs along which he had traveled, of the rivers he must cross and the forests he must travel. And then he thought of Alekhin, the man tracker, of Alekhin who was out there somewhere, out there looking for sign, trying to find him.
He had believed they did not know where he was, but over the past weeks he had seen several parties of soldiers, searching. By chance? Or had he left some clue, some indication of his passing?
Alekhin was good. He must be doubly careful.
For two days he remained away from what he had come to think of as the village, but on the third day he killed a goral and took its meat to share.
He went to the house of Baronas, but there was no one there. Disappointed, he turned to go; then he added some fuel to the fire and left the meat he had brought. He walked away into the forest.
He was deep in the forest, walking on damp leaves among the birch trees and the larch, when he saw her.
She was standing in a natural aisle among the birch and the larch. Her hood was thrown back, and a vagrant shaft of sunlight touched her blond hair. She was, he realized, a beautiful woman. Not that it mattered to him. The days were passing into weeks, and soon he would be leaving.
She came down through the forest to meet him and paused a few feet away. “You have not been to see us.”
“I built up your fire, and I left meat.”
“Thank you. We found the meat and knew it was you.” She paused. “We were not gone long.” She hesitated again. “There was a meeting.”
He waited, saying nothing. Somewhere, something stirred among the dead leaves.
“The meeting was about you. Peshkov wants you to leave. So does Rusinov. They are important men among us. My father spoke for you, and so did Yakov.
” ‘Where would he go?’ Yakov asked. It is the dead of winter. ‘
” ‘No matter,’ Peshkov argued. ‘He is a danger to us all.’
” ‘And we all eat meat he has killed,’ my father said.”
“I shall go soon.”
“Where will you go? Where can you go?”
“Where I was when I came to you. I shall go back to the forest.”
A wind rustled the leaves, a cold, cold wind. “My father says you may stay. It is not Peshkov who speaks for us.” A last golden leaf from an aspen fell and lodged in her hair. Joe Mack looked away. She was a woman, this one.
“How are they here? Do they keep hunting even in the cold?”
She shrugged. “Usually, no. For you, maybe. This is Zamatev this time, and it is Alekhin. This has not happened before. I think there will be some hunting but not much. Men could die out there.” She paused, considering it. “I think they will go to a few places. They will try to eliminate, to locate you. Then when spring comes, they will move.”
She paused. “There was a woman in Aldan. It was she who was directing. I do not know her.”
“A woman? What sort of woman?”
“Very attractive, someone said, but we do not know.” She looked at him. “We have ways … I mean, sometimes we can find out such things. This woman was in Aldan where the furs were sold. The man with her we know. His name is Stegman. We know him. He is KGB, or he was. He has been assigned to Colonel Zamatev, so the woman no doubt works with him, too. They were using a helicopter.”
He remembered the helicopter that had flown over him. The same one? It could be. Whoever was flying it had stopped to investigate that old building.
“At your meeting, what was decided?”
“You may stay, for the time being. Your meat has won you friends. It is very hard here in winter. In the warm times we can all get out and look for food. We plant. We gather in the forest. We do not do badly. In the winter it is very bad sometimes, and you brought us meat.”
They walked down the dim path together. There were many deadfalls, often criss-crossed, black with damp. It was treacherous walking. His eyes were busy, watching, seeking. There were few animals in the thick forest. Usually they were found closer to the streams or near clearings or open meadows. The forest was dense and, even at midday, shadowed and dim. But the days were even shorter now, the nights long and bitterly cold.
“You must talk to Yakov. His mother was from the Tungus people. They are keepers of reindeer, great travelers and hunters. They still live much as they wish, and there are many of them northeast of here. You might meet them.”
They walked on without talking. Stepping over a deadfall, her foot came down on another and slipped. She caught his arm and was astonished. “You are strong!”
“Where I lived there was much hard work, and then at school — do you know the decathlon? It requires all-around athletic skill. In college I won several meets, but lost out in the Olympic trials. I just wasn’t good enough.”
“Botev will go to Yakutsk soon. He will take furs.”
“I shall have some. Is it not far?”
“We cannot go always to the same place, and Stegman and that woman were seen in Aldan, visiting the place there. It is a danger to return now.”
“He will go alone?”
“No. Someone will go with him. They may not have to go all the way. Sometimes they meet with other trappers and trade their furs. We get less for them, but the risk is less, too.”
They lingered, neither wishing to end the moment. A cold wind moaned in the larch and spruce. “Come to see us, Joe Mack. I want you to tell me of the cities and the women.” She looked up at him. “I have been nowhere since I was a child. We hear so little here. Sometimes, on the Voice of America — ”
Surprised, he asked, “You hear it here?”
“When we have batteries. There is no power. Yakov has been working on a waterwheel he hopes will generate power for us but it is far from complete.”
“I am the wrong person to tell you of the cities.” His eyes met hers and he shrugged. “I did not get around very much. Some of my people there drink too much, and I never wished to chance it.”