“And then when I was older but no longer in Paris, we would meet in our own homes or sometimes in a cafe and talk of books and ideas. Even in the days when we were poor, there were always books. There were libraries, and we read everything. The mind was free to navigate any course; the world of ideas is a vast universe of unexplored worlds, and we were free to go anywhere!
“Those days are past, yet I would like to sit again with men of my kind and hear what they have done and are doing. New avenues are opening with every breath we draw. In America, in England, France, West Germany, people are free to think what they will, to write what they think!
“Russia has so much to give, yet so much to learn. We should be a part of all that instead of being confined as in a prison. I am not a Russian, yet I have lived and thought and worked so much in Russia that I feel like one. But our growth is being stunted by restrictions and rules made by idiots defending themselves against the shadows that are only in their minds!
“So many of our best dancers have fled Russian ballet for Europe or America. It is not that they love Russia less; it is simply that an art must grow. They wish to escape the cocoon of Russia and, like a butterfly, spread their wings in a larger world with greater challenges. An artist needs freedom, he needs innovation, he needs opportunity, he needs to create.”
He shook his head, embarrassed. “Talya, I talk too much! But we must escape! We must get out into a larger world where we can breathe deeper, stretch our mental muscles, and see what is happening around us.”
Somewhere back in the great forest behind them a tree crashed, blown down by the wind, a wind that roared overhead with mighty force. Fortunately, their cabin was small, solidly built, and huddled behind the rocks. Waves crashed on the shore, and at last she slept.
For three days the storm blew. Rain fell and some snow at the higher elevations, and when at last the weather cleared they went out into the morning to pick up the fallen branches and all the other debris left by the storm.
Down on the shore lay the wreck of a boat, and some men had gathered about it. The bow was high on the sand; only the stern post was still in the water. Baronas stood for a moment watching the boat. It was a good-sized craft, all of sixty feet long, he guessed, and built for heavy seas. It had been dismasted, but otherwise, at this distance, did not appear to be damaged very much.
Later, when he had completed the cleanup and had gone back into the house with more wood for the fire, he dropped it into the bin and turned to close the door.
A car, a Volga, was creeping up the steep road from the small village.
There was a driver and in the back seat a big man in a fur coat.
Stephan Baronas felt his mouth go dry and his chest constrict. “Talya,” he spoke very softly. “I am afraid we’re in trouble.”
The car was an official car. A Volga was needed for this terrain.
“Talya,” he said, “come here. We must meet them together.”
Twenty-Six
Dark were the forests, dark and still. Now it was snowing again, a thick, heavy snow falling steadily, and there was no other sound but that of falling snow, a whisper, faint yet discernible.
Two days ago he had crossed the Maymakan River and hidden himself deep in the forest. He had found a shelter of sorts built by some hunter and trapper, a crude, hidden place, long unoccupied but snug.
Approaching the Maymakan he had heard a sound in the sky, and for a moment he had stopped under a tree. This was a region of scattered trees and occasional meadows, some of them half swamp, and there were islands of mountain riding above the forest. He listened. Not one but several planes were flying over the forest. This was the most intensive search yet, and he dared not move until the planes had flown over; then he trotted out and headed for a thicker grove of trees. Other planes were coming, and he knew the Maymakan River’s banks would be guarded.
He had gone not a half mile when he heard another sound, a sharp command. Close against a tree’s trunk, he watched. Below him, not two hundred yards off, a platoon of soldiers was making camp.
He faded back into the forest and went directly away from them for a half mile. When he heard a helicopter, he went under a spruce and crouched in the snow.
They knew where he was. No such search would be permitted unless they were quite sure they were close upon him; otherwise they would not expend the manpower or the fuel. He waited where he was.
Had they seen his tracks in the snow? The copter had been flying low enough.
No matter. As soon as that platoon had eaten, they would spread out in a skirmish line and come through the woods. Undoubtedly, there were other such groups searching also. To move now would be foolish, yet when darkness came —
He had crossed the Maymakan on the ice and had come immediately into these woods and found this place. The falling snow would wipe out his tracks, and if he remained still he would make no more. It was unlikely anybody knew of this place, and he would remain hidden as long as possible.
Now it was the third day, and the search seemed to be moving away from his area. His hideout was situated on a point of a low mountain with a forest-choked valley on either side, a stream in the bottom of each. There was a small spring nearby, for whoever had made this camp had chosen well. Food was no worry, for he had the last of that stolen from the black-market warehouse at the old mine. He sat tight, hoping they would not find him.
Soldiers being soldiers, he doubted that any would choose to climb the steep mountainside to get to where he was. They could look up, and it would seem empty and harmless enough. More and more, Joe Mack wondered about the man who had constructed this place. Obviously he had not wanted it found, for it had been artfully concealed. On the evening of the fourth day, Joe Mack started again.
The earth was white with snow, except for occasional patches blown clear by the wind. During his period of hiding out, he had made moccasins again for the third time, but this time he had also worked on something else. When he had killed the last elk, he had cut off the hoofs and made moccasins from them. They would not be easy to use, nor could he move rapidly in them; so they were made simply to slip on over whatever he was wearing. A skilled tracker would probably understand what had been done within a very short time, but to the average man the tracks would simply appear to be another set of elk tracks.
He moved out now across a snowfield wearing the elk hoofs. When he reached a bare patch he slipped them off.
It was a slow, careful day, ending on the slope of a mountain looking down upon a road and a power line.
For over an hour he watched the road. There was but little traffic. He was, he guessed, no more than sixty miles from the sea, although that was probably but a poor estimate. It was time he moved back inland, for his area of operation was becoming too limited. Soon he would be seen, and the worst of it was he might not even realize it at the time. There was too much movement here, and the odds were against him.
He waited, listening. Then he moved down the mountain, staying under cover, and watched as a truck went by, and a car. Listening, he heard no sound, and the snow fell thick and fast. Emerging from the brush, he walked across the road, under the power line, and into the brush. The snow was very deep, except on the road itself, where traffic had packed it down.
Moving north away from the highway, he went up through woods so dense he could see no more than a few feet in any direction. At daylight he bedded down in the bitter cold in a snow cave he dug out of the side of a drift, packing the sides with his hands and cutting a snow block for a door. With his bow he pushed a ventilation hole through the snow overhead, leaving the bow in place to help keep the hole open.