The Trace of the Wolf

by Siegfried Wittwer

  "That won't help him either," Litschenko mumbled, "because I know Wulff, he's long gone!"

  He gave the order to leave. In a fast march the soldiers returned to their starting point, Litschenko at their head. It urged him to find out what had happened to the vehicles. He was also angry at himself. If only he hadn't been so careless at the river earlier! He should have given the order to fish Michail Wulff out of the water immediately. Then his trick would have been exposed. In the end, it was his fault. The men knew that, too, and he could well imagine how Lieutenant Colonel Wdowetschenko would react to his report. It had all started out so well.

  A hunter had reported to the KGB official in Nakama that he had observed two adventurous figures with binoculars at the source rivers of the Wiljni, an old man and a teenager with shoulder-length blond hair and full beard. The official had reacted quickly because he knew of last autumn's events. Meanwhile Michail Wulff was also considered a felon who had to be hunted mercilessly. The hunter's location description had been so precise that they had found the cave of the two outlaws after a short search. But now everything had turned out completely different than planned, and it had been mainly his mistake!

  Litschenko bit his lips. He had to try to make up for his mistake. On the other hand, he developed more and more respect for whom they had hunted, almost it could be called sympathy. When he had believed that Michail Wulff was dead, shot by Olejnik Chrapow, he had felt a touch of sadness. It had seemed like a waste to him that the hunter had simply shot a man as capable as Wulff like a mangy dog. And he had felt how hostility against this insensitive man began to sprout up in him.

  It took them about two and a half hours to get back. Tired and hungry, the men reached the starting point of their unsuccessful manhunt. Already from the hill they could see what had happened.

  The burnt out Ural lay like the carcass of a half-decayed giant animal in the ditch next to the rough lane. So, they stood without equipment and vehicle in the wilderness, almost one hundred fifty miles from Nakama. It would be a long march. As they descended the slope, they discovered the two men lying on their stomachs between the birch trees. There was no trace of Chrapow, though.

  Litschenko laughed loudly when he saw the tied up soldiers. It sounded half amused, half desperate. He couldn't help himself. He suddenly felt as if his brain had been turned by a mincer. The men looked at him in amazement. Litschenko got a hold of himself again.

  "It's sad and funny at the same time," he said, explaining his strange behavior. "I leave two capable guys like you back to guard our equipment from a teenager, and this guy just walks into the camp. He'll beat you both up and tie you to a tree with your own shoelaces without taking your boots off!"

  Litschenko looked around. "Where's Chrapow?" he asked. "Hasn't he been here yet?"

  The men kept their mouths shut and just shrugged their shoulders.

  Like an answer to his question, a shot tore the silence apart.

  "That's Chrapow's hunting rifle," Karatajew shouted, "maybe he put this guy down."

  They listened hard to see if there was a second shot sounding to determine the direction in which they had to search for Chrapow. Only a few seconds later they heard the hunter's rifle a second and a third time. The shots came from the east.

  "Come on, five men go with comrade Karatajew to look for Chrapow," ordered Litschenko, while he pointed his finger at the individual soldiers. "The others see if there's anything left to save from the truck."

  As the men climbed the hill, Litschenko sat down on the grass to think about the plans Michael Wulff would make. What was that man up to? How could they get their hands on him? He had to try to think like Wulff did.

  ◆◆◆

  Mischka stopped the Uas briefly when it reached the gravel road. He looked right and left, but no car was seen. Then he put in first gear, roared the engine, chased the car forward and jerked the steering wheel around as he turned left into the road. Sand and stones spattered on, while the tires dug a clear trace into the ground. Even a city person would be able to tell which direction he had taken and that he was in a great hurry.

  He hadn't been driving half an hour before he met a truck. Mischka honked his horn and waved to the driver as he races past him at high speed. Then he throttled the engine and drove south without haste. The road went up a mountain in serpentines. Arrived at the top of the pass, Mischka discovered a so-called tree of luck. Many truck drivers had put something down here or hung something in the branches of the tree, which was meaningful to them: a cigarette, a ribbon, the shred of a letter or a screw with a nut. These offerings were supposed to save them from misfortune on their travels.

  It's interesting, Mischka thought, how superstitious the comrades in our atheistic republic are. Smile at Proschin's Church services, but at the same time sacrifice a ribbon from their daughter's hair to the spirits of nature in order to get home safely. Are people in the West more enlightened?

  Forty minutes later he reached his first goal, a tributary river of the Tunguska. He drove the Uas to the shore and unloaded one of the rubber dinghies. After inflating it limply, he threw in a rifle, a handful of cartridges, a broken arrow, some clothes and three food cans. Then he pushed the boat to the shore, shoveled a few hands of water over the edge and sprinkled earth, grass and leaves over the objects.

  He examined his work. The rubber dinghy looked as if it had been drifting down the river without a guide for a few days. Shortly determined he pushed it into the current and watched it for a few minutes.

  "Have a good trip!" Mischka shouted after him. "I hope you will reach the Jennisei! But you should at least make it to the Tunguska!"

  Satisfied, he returned to the Uas and left for the north. Ten minutes later, he saw a vehicle appear in the distance. Then it disappeared behind some bumps again.

  Certainly one of the long-distance transporters, he tried to calm himself down. Litschenko and his comrades could not have made it. They needed at least another two hours to get to the road, even if they had hurried down the rough lane at the rate of an endurance run. So, he had plenty of time.

  Mischka turned the jeep around, opened the bonnet and rolled up his sleeves. Shortly thereafter the vehicle reappeared. It was actually a long-range transporter. As the driver approached, he slowed his speed and finally braked the truck. A bearded face appeared on the passenger side window. "Well, comrade soldier, problems with the engine? Can I help you?"

  "No, thank you!" Mischka waved off with a smile. "An ignition cable was loose, but it’s sitting there again. Anyway, thank you so much for stopping. If you have an engine failure here, you can wait a long time or walk a long way until you find help."

  "That's right!" laughed the bearded man. "I've hung at the road for two days myself. It was murderously cold back then! So, I can sympathize with any poor pig that has a breakdown. – Well, have a good trip. Maybe I'll see you in Nakama."

  "Yeah, maybe. But first I will stretch my legs and have a bite to eat before returning to the barracks. So long!"

  The bearded man nodded to Mischka once more in a friendly manner. Then he set the truck in motion again. Thoughtfully the driver squatted behind the steering wheel. Finally he spat out of the open side window and muttered: "Strangely, when I was in the military, there were no beards and long hair. We had to be freshly shaved and to have short cut hair, even if we didn't like it. How times change."

  The long-distance transporter had just disappeared behind a bend when Mischka was already steering the Uas north again. He passed the old rough lane, looked again at the trace he had laid, and drove on calmly. After all, he already had two witnesses who could summon to see him on the way to Nakama.

  The highway was one of the many routes that Stalin had built by prisoners of war and political prisoners until 1953. Millions were killed. Mischka knew that their bodies had simply been buried in the road. It was a strange feeling for him to drive his car across some kind of cemetery. In his mind he saw the pale, emaciated figures under h
is wheels in their torn off trousers and jackets, saw their dead eyes shine to new glow, heard them shouting with clenched fists: "Crash the tyrants and their torturers!"

  Mischka shook his head to get rid of the evil daydream. But again and again his thoughts returned to those who had been tortured at that time. How many of them had as he hoped to live in freedom again, someday? How many had planned their escape and failed? How much lost love, broken dreams, how much hopelessness was buried under his wheels?

  As if to confirm his thoughts, he passed a former prison camp. Mischka stopped the car and looked at the collapsed barbed wire fences, the observation towers and the rotten, partly collapsed barracks. Wafts of mist hung between the buildings. Something uncanny lay over the site where thirty years ago the forced laborers had been crowded together like cattle to drive them to work every morning. It was a cursed place for the locals. Hardly anyone dared to set foot on it.

  A shiver was moving over his back as he passed the camp with his broken gate as he drove on.

  If only all the penal camps soon looked the same, he thought. When will man stop abusing, imprisoning, or killing others just because they have a different opinion, belief, or people?

  Fifteen minutes later he reached a watercourse. It was narrow, but flowed east. Mischka drove the Uas down to the riverbank, parked it behind a bush and studied the map again. It was right. The road to Nakama was a watershed. While the first rubber dinghy drifted west in the meantime, the small river, on whose bank he now stood, flowed into the Wiljni. So, he would pass Proschin's cave if he used his second rubber dinghy here. And that's exactly what he had in mind. His pursuers would think of this escape route last.

  While he was unloading the Uas, he came up with an idea. Instead of sinking the car into the river, he could hide it in one of the barracks of the old camp! Nobody would suspect the car there. Maybe next year it was still ready for driving. Then he could use it again for his escape. He only had to prepare it well for the winter. This idea inspired Mischka again. He sorted what he had captured. Then he loaded everything he didn't need in the next months, and also a part of the food into the Uas and drove back to the camp.

  With mixed feelings, he rolled through the gate and parked the car behind a dilapidated barrack to inspect the area. He had barely gotten out of the Uas when two trucks roared by. Mischka ducked deep behind a bush. He knew that the look of every driver was drawn to this dreadful place.

  He didn't have to search long because one of the barracks seemed to be still intact. With an iron rod he broke several boards from the back wall, drove the car through the opening into the interior and parked it in a corner. He pushed the ignition key behind the cover of the back of the driver's seat after lubricating it with a little engine oil. Then he piled as many boards as he could find over the Uas until it was no longer visible.

  In the meantime, dawn had broken. That's why he rushed back to the riverbank. It was already dark when he could finally push the inflated and loaded boat into the water. Mischka let himself drift down the little river for an hour before he tied his boat to the low-hanging branch of a willow to make himself comfortable for the night. As soon as he had rolled himself into his blanket, he sank into a deep and dreamless sleep. It had been an exhausting and eventful day!

  Litschenko jumped on his feet when the soldiers returned with Olejnik Chrapow. He was lying on a stretcher made of tied birch trunks. The face of the hunter spoke volumes. Obviously, he was in a lot of pain. At the same time, anger and disappointment were written all over his face.

  When he noticed Litschenko's questioning gaze, it broke out of him: "Yes, look, lieutenant! Probably my right ankle's broken again. Shit, damn it! When I ran back to the car, I stepped into a foxhole."

  A medic opened Chrapow's boots very carefully in the meantime.

  "Damn you! Can't you be more careful?" the hunter shouted at him as the man tried to pull his boot off his foot. Although the accident happened only a quarter of an hour ago, Chrapow's ankle was already swollen and bluish.

  "I will immobilize the foot with a bandage," said the medic so uninvolved as if he were talking about the weather. "Whether it’s broken or just sprained can only be determined by an x-ray. So, we have to get this man to the hospital in Nakama."

  "A long way to go," Karatajew interjected.

  Litschenko nodded. "In any case, we must march to the highway. A truck driver might be able to take us from there. Come on comrades, let's get on the way, so that we can be back in the barracks by tomorrow at the latest."

  As they marched down the rough lane, Litschenko and Chrapow discussed their next steps.

  "What do you think, Comrade Chrapow, in which direction has Michail Wulff run away this time?"

  "Anything's possible with this guy. I must admit, I thoroughly underestimated him. But I don't make a mistake twice. As soon as I can walk again, I will rush this guy over the mountains until the blood splashes out of his shoes!"

  Litschenko waved off. "Great words won't help us, Chrapow. We must try to think like Wulff does. So far, he's kept fleeing to the northeast. Does he want to cross the Bering Strait to Alaska?"

  "Hardly!" the hunter returned. "This is a murderous way."

  "But the aborigines of America dared."

  "At that time, the continents were still connected by ice and islands."

  "Maybe," Litschenko threw in, "or maybe they used boats."

  They kept quiet for a while. Chrapow supported himself with both arms on the stretcher and leaned his head back with his eyes closed.

  "Probably his march to the east is just a feint," he finally said.

  "I suppose so, too," Litschenko agreed. "For example, he could try to escape to Iran via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan."

  "But as a blond, European type, he would attract a lot of attention there," the hunter pointed out.

  "Yeah, but there's a lot of Russians running around there, too."

  "I somehow feel it in my bones that this guy tried to hide in the East until grass grew over his escape, then set off for the West. Maybe about Scandinavia. He's of German descent, isn't he?"

  Litschenko nodded while he continued to brood. "Yeah, I've considered that, but what's he gonna do now? Will he use his advantage to get as far west as possible, or will he turn corners?"

  "I don't think he's going northeast now," Karatajew interfered. "After all, we've always been on his trail so far. I'm guessing he's going to take a whole new route now."

  "It's possible," nodded the lieutenant. "But what is it?"

  "We'll know soon enough!" Chrapow sounded confident again. "We'll be back on his trail soon."

  ◆◆◆

  Mischka reached Proschin's cave a day later. Taking advantage of every cover, he sneaked up to the side door. For minutes he remained motionless and listened with his mouth slightly open. No suspicious sounds were heard. Like a shadow he slid into the crevice and leaned behind a ledge. Again he concentrated completely to perceive all suspicious noises and movements. Only then did he risk a glimpse of the cave room. It looked as if a horde of medieval Mongols had raged here. Litschenko's men had done a big job.

  He returned to the river, crossed over to the other bank and pulled the rubber dinghy ashore. He had to walk from here. After he had assembled his equipment, Mischka let the air out of the rubber dinghy, rolled it up and put it back into the bag. Then he dug a hole in the dry sandy soil, lined it with branches and stones and stowed the boat, canned food and equipment in it. After he had covered the opening with stones, grass and branches, he pushed sand over it and put the trunk of a dried birch tree into it.

  Like a squirrel, he thought, while he looked contentedly at his hiding place, everywhere I have stock for the way back. Proschin's idea isn't so stupid.

  After an extensive night's rest and a canned breakfast, he finally made his way to the sources of the Lundja to stay there for another winter.

  ◆◆◆

  Litschenko and his men were lucky. Shortly after they had
turned onto the highway, a military transporter appeared, which took them with it into the barracks of Nakama. While Litschenko pulled all the levers at his disposal to track down the refugee, Chrapow's foot was x-rayed. He had got off lightly, because apart from a strong bruise and a pulled tendon, the military doctor could not detect anything. In two weeks, the hunter would be able to walk again without complaints. The next morning he hobbled on a crutch in Litschenko's barracks.

  "I will probably have to get used to seeing you again and again in plaster and bandages," grinned Litschenko.

  "Don't make your stupid remarks! You'd better tell me what you've found out by now." The hunter felt his honor injured. Never before had he suffered so many defeats in such a short time. That gnawed at his pride.

  "Well, I had an extremely unpleasant conversation with Juri Wdowetschenko," the lieutenant replied. "He seems to be under even greater pressure to succeed than we are. In the end, our failures fall back on him. That's why he had a fit of raving madness when he heard my report."

  The hunter just nodded silently.

  "You know, Comrade Chrapow, at first I was afraid of the Lieutenant Colonel's tantrums," Litschenko said in a touch of openness, "perhaps because I feared the consequences if I failed. But now all this leaves me cold. Strangely enough, I no longer believe in the success of our mission. Still, I'm not afraid of a punitive transfer anymore. Probably our failures have hardened me."

  "Our failures?" the hunter went up. His finger drilled into Litschenko's chest as if to nail him to the wall of the room. "It was only your failure, your scabbiness! You're a born loser, and you know it. Without you, there would have been only one dead man, this Wulf. You blew the whole tour!"

  Litschenko turned sideways so that Chrapow lost his balance and had to strain his injured foot. The hunter hissed air through his teeth as a wave of pain chased through his body.