The wind stirred the dry, unfallen leaves. A branch creaked in the cold. Something moved in the forest and he remained still; then he went along the wall, ducking below the lighted window, and hesitated where the trees began.
All the twigs and sticks had been picked up from the ground to be used in kindling fires, so he moved soundlessly under the trees; then he paused to listen. Something or somebody was out there.
Peshkov? Probably —
He moved on in the darkness under the trees and then went up the hillside under the trees. There he crouched, waiting.
Somebody was coming. Somebody was following him.
Why would anyone follow him at night? To capture or kill him. There could be no other reason.
Unless, perhaps, to enter his hideout and steal his furs and meat.
A footstep crunched on the frozen earth. A huge shadow moved, and he arose from where he crouched and stood behind the man.
“If you start to turn around,” he said, “I will kill you.”
Nineteen
Joe Mack held his knife against Peshkov’s kidney. “You follow me,” he said in Russian. “I do not like it.”
“No, no! I go to my own place. I go to sleep!”
“Go, then. But if ever I find you following me or lurking around where I am, I shall hunt you down and kill you.”
Peshkov was recovering his nerve, which had been frightened out of him. “Or maybe I kill you!” he blustered.
Joe Mack stepped back, the knife still ready. “Good! Now we understand each other. Go, but do not turn around. The sight of your face might make me change my mind.”
He went, hurrying and stumbling. Once, when some distance off, he turned and shouted something, words lost in the wind.
Watching him go, Joe Mack knew it was soon to be time for him to leave. One enemy was all he needed, and an enemy who brought trouble to him would bring it to this small community, and they had befriended him.
Weeks had passed and he had lost count of the days. How long until spring? How long until it would be warm enough to travel? He had no desire to die in the snow, and men froze quickly, almost instantly if somehow they broke through the ice of a stream or became wet.
He went through the trees to his hideout, pausing to listen, to learn if he was followed. It was bitterly cold, and his face was covered to the eyes. He built a small fire when he was safe in his cave, for only a small fire was needed. He would not be warm, only safe from the cold.
Where was Zamatev now, and what was he doing? Cold weather might slow a search but would not stop it, and the Russian colonel was ruthless and relentless. Wherever he was he would be thinking, planning, conniving.
And Alekhin? Where was he?
There had been a woman in Aldan. Women in Russia worked as did men and might be found filling any role. This one must have been someone with rank, perhaps a second to Zamatev himself. Of her he must be especially careful, for women sometimes had flashes of intuition or at least an approach different from that of a man. Her mind, working in another channel, might come up with answers Zamatev and his male cohorts might not consider.
The worst of it was that there might be something he would not consider. As he lay curled in his bear robe he thought of that. Perhaps he should discuss it with Natalya. She might foresee something he was ignoring.
What he must do was simple enough. He must escape from Siberia and return to America.
Their problem was equally simple: to prevent his escape and recapture him. His logical route was toward China, but that way was barred, he was sure, by the careful border watch. Sooner or later they would guess he was going east, and the further he went, the narrower the country through which he must travel and the more confined their search for him.
Even now they would be sitting together, putting their thoughts together with one object only: to capture him.
He awakened rested, and his hunting led him to a fine young moose in good condition. He killed it with one arrow and skinned it rapidly, for fear it would freeze solid before he finished. Yet he managed to save the hide and the best cuts of meat, and he was not fifty yards away before wolves were tearing at the carcass. He took the meat to Baronas to distribute, keeping only enough for himself.
“Good!” Baronas was pleased. “This will quiet some of the talk.”
“Talk?”
“Some of them are growing nervous. Botev is back, and Lermontov has come in from Yakutsk. There are special details there, with helicopters, just waiting for the weather to break. Our people are frightened,”
He got up. “I will take the meat to them. They will be so busy eating, they cannot talk.”
When he was gone, Joe Mack looked over at Natalya. She was sewing on the shirt she was making, a very handsome shirt. “I will have to go,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.” She looked up at him, and their eyes met. “It has been good, having you here.”
“Yes, good for me, too.”
There was a long silence then, and he fed sticks to the hungry fire.
“When you get back to America, will you think of me?”
“How could I forget you?” he said, and was startled at the words. Now why had he said that?
“It is very far. Everyone will be against you.”
“How could it be otherwise? If our people and your people could sit down together and talk about their families, their farms, and their jobs, I think there would be no trouble.
“It is our governments that are continually fencing for position, each trying to gain some advantage.
“Russia does not trust its own people. They have built a wall to keep them in, and they are not permitted to travel.”
“Do your people travel wherever they wish?”
“Of course, and so does most of the world. Each year millions of Americans travel in their own country or go abroad, and many visitors from other countries come to America. They can go anywhere they wish except for a few military establishments that nobody wants to see, anyway. They photograph everything, and we do not mind. It is expected of them. Our people do the same thing when they go to England, France, Japan, wherever.
“The ironic part of it is that the Soviet Union spends millions trying to steal information they could have for the taking if they were friendly. ”
The fire crackled and a stick fell, sending up a shower of sparks. “It may be,” he said, “that I shall have to leave suddenly, with no chance to say good-bye. Do not think me ungrateful.”
“Father warned me of that.” She held up the shirt to inspect her handiwork. “I cannot imagine how you will live or how you will escape them. They will be searching everywhere, and the closer you come to the sea, the more intense the search will be. And how will you escape? How can you cross the sea?”
He shrugged. “That is tomorrow’s problem. I think of that always, but meanwhile I deal with today.”
“There are few people where you go. If you are seen, they will know it is you.”
“I must cultivate the art of invisibility.”
“I do not want you to go.”
He met her glance and was silent. What was there to say? He must go. To stay was to die. And to stay was to be defeated, and he was a Sioux. He could fight them alone. He had always been alone. It was one of the reasons he had liked flying the aircraft he had flown. He was up there alone, dependent on nothing but himself.
When he had roamed in the forest as a boy, he had been alone. When he went away to school, the only Indian, he had been alone. But he had never minded. He was the stronger because of it.
Thinking about it, he knew he liked people. He enjoyed having them around, enjoyed their voices, their movements, their activities, but he had never had to be a part of it. He was rarely a participant. He was the interested bystander, but when he acted, it was he alone.
He liked being here, now, in this quiet place. He liked having Natalya near him, liked watching her, liked the way her eyelids lifted when she looked at him, liked to watch her fingers move. She was a lovely, graceful, beautiful woman, and here in this place there was no future at all, not for her.
“What are you thinking of?” she asked suddenly.
“You.”