For all city dwellers he had only contempt. He had no sense of inferiority concerning anybody or anything. There were spirits in the wilderness, in the trees and mountains, he knew that. Occasionally he appeased them in some minor way. He respected them without thinking of them.
He was as elemental as a beast. He had the strength of a gorilla and the movements of a cat. He thought no more of exercise or training than does a grizzly bear or a tiger. His strength had been born into him, and he used it constantly.
When Zamatev said he wanted the American alive, Alekhin was only half listening. Alive or dead did not matter, although it was often less trouble simply to kill them and save himself the trouble of getting them back to a highway or a railroad.
As for taking the American alive, Alekhin had his doubts. The American was revealing himself in his trail. He had also revealed something of himself in the helicopter incident. The only puzzling question to Alekhin was why the American had not killed Peshkov. He’d had him cold.
Alekhin had read the tracks easily enough. The American had had him and let him go, and Peshkov had immediately informed on him. So the American was a bit of a fool.
Not entirely a fool. That would be dangerous thinking, but he had hesitated to kill.
Alekhin wasted no time thinking of motivations. One did what was necessary, and it had been necessary for the American to kill Peshkov.
The American would not be easily taken. Cornered, he would fight, and Alekhin would have to kill him.
He would have no choice.
Those soldiers were as much to protect the prisoner when captured as they were to assist him. So if necessary he might have to kill them, too.
On the third day after Joe Mack’s passing, Alekhin and his soldiers came to the shack of the big young woman with the blue eyes. She knew nothing, had seen nothing.
Her manner was brusque, and one of the soldiers did not like it. “I shall come back,” he said, “and question you further.”
“Bah!” she said contemptuously.
He started back, and Alekhin stopped him with a sharp order. “Do not be a fool! She would take your rifle from you and spank you with it. She cares nothing for you or your uniform.”
The soldier grumbled, and Alekhin said, “Look around you. This is where she lives. Could you live here? You would starve. You would die in the cold. Women like that you leave alone, or speak to politely, very politely.”
The soldier continued to mutter, and Alekhin said, “If we had the time I’d let you go back, just to see the fun. And if you continue to grumble, I’ll send you back.”
Alekhin found a camp on the slope of Mount Konus, A bed of spruce boughs, the remains of a small fire, a corner of a birchbark dish that had not quite burned, although left in the fire. On the side of the part of the dish that remained, he saw a tea leaf.
So he had tea? Where had he gotten that? Or had he brought it from that so-called village?
The trail away led down into a grim and awful gorge, cluttered with fallen trees, broken boulders, scree, and great slabs of rock, much of it overgrown with thick green moss that was treacherous underfoot. Much of it was easy walking but deceptive, as under some of the moss there was ice formed from moisture that had seeped through to the rock slab beneath and frozen. A misstep and a man’s feet shot from under him. A bad fall at any time and death if it happened on the brink of a cliff.
It was slow going, hand work as much as with the feet, and the soldiers were frightened. They were Russians, peasant boys from the flat country, with the exception of one who was from a city.
The American had gone this way and left no sign. Almost none. Alekhin found a place where he had rested his hand in getting past a tight corner of cliff. He found a partial print of an unty, a moccasin.
The trail was descending steeply down from the mountain. Every step must be taken with care. A half mile further down, Alekhin found a place where the American had slipped; moss had skidded under his foot, leaving a telltale bare spot where the ice had frozen again.
How far ahead? Alekhin studied the spot and then shrugged. Maybe two days. They were gaining on him.
He was positive now that the American was going north and east. He was planning on trying to cross the Bering Strait.
He would have no chance there. The area was patrolled and covered by radar. Simply no chance at all. Yet the American was no fool, and he was going that way.
Desperate? No other way out? He was a flyer, and yet he had made no move toward an airport where he might steal a plane. The word was that he could fly anything.
Alekhin was irritated by the soldiers. They moved too slowly. Not being woodsmen, they took special care, and it was well they did, for they were clumsy in the forest.
Suvarov was in Nel’kan, which he supposed was less than two hundred miles away to the north and east. He had never been to Nel’kan, but Suvarov was nothing if not thorough. He would have the crossings of the Maya River watched closely.
Now they descended into a burned-over forest. Lightning, no doubt, had started a fire that had burned over several thousand acres. The charred trunks of limbless trees pointed their black fingers at the sky. It was a haunted place, an eerie, lonely place. The soldiers closed in, following Alekhin as if for protection. From time to time their eyes strayed left and right. Once in a while each turned his head to look back to see if they were being followed. The earth was frozen. Snow had fallen in a light film scattered thinly over the charred earth and fallen trees.
There were no animals here nor any birds, only a stark emptiness. It was a place of death. And here the tracks were plain enough. It was as if the Indian had wanted them to see his tracks or had not cared. Did he not know he was followed? The tracks wove a way among the charred logs and blackened trees. Perhaps it was simply that he realized the futility of attempting to hide a trail in such a place.
Oddly, the trail veered west, then east, then north again, and then back to the east. Alekhin stopped, looking angrily around. What was the American trying to do?
Suddenly, he realized and was amused. There were places where the wind or the fire or both had felled great rows of trees, and they were deliberately being led where such trees must be stepped over, climbed over, or crawled under. It was slow, exasperating, and very tiring, and the soldiers were beginning to straggle more and more.
They plodded on. Fearing some ruse, Alekhin stayed to the trail. One of the soldiers, seeing an easier way, instead of climbing over the fallen tree went around the broken-off trunk. Alekhin, glancing back, saw it happen.
The soldier was the last in line, and taking what seemed the easier way, he had just stepped past the base of the broken-off tree when he tripped and fell.
As he fell he gave off a great, choking cry, and the other soldiers started to run toward him.
“No!” Alekhin shouted. “No! No!”
Unheeding, they rushed to their fallen comrade, and suddenly another tripped and fell. He cried out, then scrambled up, bleeding. His comrades had stopped, staring at him.
There was a great, bloody gash in the side of his neck, and he was gripping it with his hands to stop the blood.
“Be careful!” Alekhin warned. “There are traps!”
Stepping with caution, they approached the injured man and began to apply crude first aid.
Alekhin went around him to the soldier who had fallen first. He had tripped over a root tied across the path, and when he fell a sharpened wooden stake had been waiting for him. Hurrying around the trunk of the broken tree, he had tripped, and the stake had gone right through him. The man was gasping his last when Alekhin stopped beside him.
In anticipation that his fall would attract others, another ankle-high root had been tied carefully. The second man had been stabbed in the side of the neck by the sharpened stake. An inch or two further to the side and it would have pierced his throat.
Alekhin was disgusted. Four men had been sent with him. Now one of them was dead and another injured beyond any use, and he must be cared for by a third. Somehow, he must get help. He did not know the full range of the radio he carried, but he attempted a call.