When the emergency rations taken from the Volga had given out, he had subsisted on marmots, even voles, and occasionally a ptarmigan.
Shortly after he abandoned the Volga, the country had been crisscrossed by helicopters and planes, and during most of that time he had huddled in a niche in a clay bank behind some dead poplars and a few straggling willows, a place planes flew over time and again, the searchers never imagining that even a marmot might conceal itself there. For three days he had had nothing to eat; then he caught some fish in a trap he had woven from plant fibers.
Spring was here, and the tundra was aglow with wildflowers. They were flowers found above timberline in his own country.
He made a new bow and arrows, as well as a sling, but it was the sling that served him best. He had found the cave by accident, while kneeling on an icy rock near a small stream. As he had started to rise he had seen the opening. It was not three feet wide and scarcely that in height. It was masked by some dwarfed stone pine, and when he examined it he found a spacious cave with a sandy floor.
He was not the first to use the cave. Someone else, long ago, had built fires here. He found the crack used for a chimney and gathered driftwood along the stream and broken branches from under the stone pine.
For the first time in days he was able to be warm, and in another gorge a half mile away he found some birch. He gathered bark to make a crude raincoat for himself and used some of the leaves to mix with vodka as a rubdown for his bruised legs.
Despite the fact that spring had come, the nights were piercingly cold, the skies very clear, and the stars unbelievably bright. He was always cold, huddling above his fire like some Stone Age creature. He made moccasins of the skins of marmots, but they wore through quickly, and he could find no larger animals. Occasionally he came upon the droppings of mountain goats, but saw none of them. Once he came on the sign of a very large bear, a huge beast, judging by the size of the tracks. He comforted himself with the thought that no bear of that size could get into this cave now, although once the opening had been considerably larger. Floods had piled up sand and rocks until much of the original opening had become covered.
He existed like an animal, and a poor creature at that, with little food and never enough of a fire to really become warm. Fuel was scarce, and soon he must move on.
Here and there on the smooth rocks he had seen scratches left by glaciers in the remote past, but there was no evidence of them in the low country. They seemed only to have affected the higher rock formations.
He must move on. He told himself this as he huddled, shivering over his small fire. He must move on, find another place, try to find some large animals that he might eat. How long since he had not starved? How long since he had anything but the most meager meal?
Yet it had been days now since he had seen a plane, days without seeing a helicopter. No doubt he had been given up for dead, and well he might be. He had been kicked and pounded, struck with clubs and doubled belts, but he knew that was nothing to what awaited him if he were recaptured. Such beatings were sheer brutality, not the refinements of torture that he could expect from Zamatev.
He dreaded the thought of moving. He dreaded the cold, the wind, the nights without a fire, the cold, icy rains.
It would be easier, far easier to just lie down here and die.
Why fight a losing battle? Even if he got to the coast, how could he ever get across the Bering Strait or the Chukchi Sea?
Yet when morning came he took up his bow and arrows and started once more. He had never gone back for the things he had cached. He had feared to lose the time, so he had driven the Volga until the gas was almost gone.
Had they found the car? No doubt, although he had left it hidden under the willows and standing on ice that by this time had melted.
He no longer thought of Alekhin or Zamatev. Nor did he even think of Natalya. All that was far away and in another world, a world of much meat and of at least a little warmth. For weeks now, he had been merely surviving, and for what? If found now he was in no shape to resist or even to try to escape.
He walked slowly up a shallow draw toward the crest of a low hill. He picked his way over bare rocks. Ice still lingered in shady places, and a small trickle of a stream found its way down a deep crack. From long habit, he approached the crest with infinite care and then peered over.
He had expected more of the same terrain. Instead he looked across a tremendous valley, many miles wide and through the center of which there was obviously a river. He could not see it, but he could see where one had to be, and many small lakes. Below him, there was a road or trail, and some six or seven miles away, a town and an airfield. Between himself and the town there was tundra, with no cover except along some of the smaller streams where there were clumps of Manchurian poplar and tight thickets of willow. There was simply no way he could cross without being seen. Wearily, he turned back and went down the mountain and began working his way through the low hills toward the north.
Now he must be doubly careful, for he was within the vicinity of people, and planes would occasionally be flying to or taking off from that airfield.
Remembering the map, he thought the river was the Penzhina, and if so, it flowed down from the mountains before him and he would have it to cross.
That night, descending the mountain, he came upon three goats lying among the rocks. They were accustomed to enemies coming up from below, and because the wind was from them and toward him, he was unnoticed.
His first arrow was a kill. One of the goats ran off, but the old ram stood up, head down as if to attack. He was a big fellow and surly, yet when Joe Mack began to approach, he backed off. Then with many a backward look, he went away.
He skinned out the goat to save the hide, then cut out what meat he needed. Descending into a hollow, he found a secluded nook and built a fire, roasting his meat. It was his first good meal in weeks. He packed the rest of the meat and spent some time working on the hide before rolling it up. He doubted the small smoke had drawn attention, but wished to get away from the vicinity in the event it had been noticed.
Joe Mack was alone upon the mountains, and he idled his way across vast slabs of tilled rock, edging ever north, avoiding the few villages and the fewer houses. He ate good meat again and gained in strength. In a stream where a warm spring flowed, he bathed, enjoying the warm water. That evening before sundown, he killed a deer and renewed his meat supply.
He kept to low ground when possible and walked through the larch forests when he crossed the Mayn. He was nearing the sea again. Sometimes in the morning he could almost taste the salt wind. For days he had seen nothing human, nor had he seen a plane. Yet he knew they would not have given up. They would be seeking him even more seriously.
His wounds were healed. His jaw was back to normal. His eyes could focus again, and the ache in his skull seemed to have gone away. Sometimes he would stop to lift rocks, building back the muscle he had lost.
He made pants of buckskin and a coat from the skin of the mountain goat. He made a belt to carry his pistols and a quiver for his arrows. He carried the bow in his hand, and he walked with an easier step.
How long since his escape? Spring had come, summer and now fall, and another winter lay over the edge of the world, waiting to kill him.
“Not this time, old friend,” he said aloud. “I shall be gone, or killed by others.”
Twice during the day he saw birds of the sea. Once he saw some gulls, and another time what he believed was a tern. He walked upon a mountain and saw the sea’s reflection in the sky. He was close, and over there, across the horizon, was Alaska, was America, his country, from which he had been too long away.