Last of the Breed (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  She looked at her father, and he caught her eyes and smiled. “I am all right, Talya. I will make it.”

  “We are away now,” Yakov said. “We can move slower. Do many know of this path?”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it. People from the village did not often come that way. Some knew of the cabin, but the trail was steep and they had no reason to climb it. I think when they went to the forest it was along the river. Most of them are fishermen,” she added. “There are hunters who live in the forest. In the old days the Chinese used to come to hunt for ginseng, but with the border patrolled as it is, they rarely come.”

  Yakov nodded. “I was a ginseng hunter once. The Chinese value it highly. If it were summer I would suggest you find some of it to take with you.” He winked. “A valuable bribe you know! Sometimes they will do things for ginseng they will not do for money.”

  They moved on at a slower pace. From time to time she paused to look at her father’s face. It was composed; he seemed under no strain.

  “We’ll stop soon,” Yakov said, “and make tea.”

  They walked on until suddenly he stopped. A great tree had fallen, torn up by the roots, and the great root mass, clogged with frozen earth, made a wall. Beside it grew a cedar with outspreading branches, thick and heavy now with snow. “Here,” Yakov said, “we stop here.”

  He led the way off the trail and under the cedar’s branches. It was a neat little place, naturally sheltered and with a natural reflector for the fire in the great root mass.

  “Always look,” Yakov said. “A man in the forest, he watches always and sees many places like this. He remembers, so if he comes that way again he knows where there is a camp.”

  Soon he had a fire going and tea bubbling in their small pot. From under a fallen tree he ripped a slab of bark for Baronas to sit on, others for her and for himself.

  “If you need fire, always carry tinder: an old bird’s nest, dry shreds of bark, something to start the fire. There are always dry branches, long dead, on the trunks of trees. Deadfall trees often do not touch the ground, and the bark on the underside is dry.” He looked at her again. “Soon I must go. You will be alone. You must see all and think very much. Always you must camp before dark, so you can see. Build a small fire and get close.”

  He added sticks to their fire and poured tea for each of them. He grinned at her. “Bears are smart. There is nothing to eat in the winter, so they sleep. There are no berries, roots are deep under the snow, and no small animals run about, so they sleep. Very smart.”

  “You have to go?”

  He nodded. “I must meet four other men far from here. We are helping a man escape from the Sovetskaya Gavan prison.” He looked at her. “I cannot be late. They need me. You understand?”

  “Of course.” She said it and she did understand, but inside she was frightened. To be left alone in all these mountains! What would she do? What could she do?

  Yet wasn’t this where Joe Mack was? Wasn’t this where he had been for months and months? What was it Yakov said? Watch and think.

  “We will be all right,” she said.

  He took a map from his case, sheltering it from the few flakes of snow that drifted down into their shelter. “Here we are. You see? You cross a divide here and another divide over here; then you find this river going northwest. It is the Vagou River. It goes to near Iman, on the border.

  “I will try to get back. But I do not much know this border south of Iman. Do not look for me. I will find you. But if I am killed, you speak to your friend Bocharev. He is a good man. Maybe he can help. I do not know.”

  He stood up. “We had better go now. I will find a place for tonight, and then I will go away.”

  He donned his snowshoes and waited for them to do likewise. Then he led off. When they reached the trail again, they looked back. No tracks remained. Already the trail was white and smooth, as if never touched by the foot of man or beast.

  Hours later and a thousand feet higher, he found an overhang partly shielded by cedars. “For tonight,” he said, “a good place.” He glanced at her again. “In the morning I will be gone. I do not like to leave you, but they are waiting for me. All is timed. The prisoner will be at a certain place for a few minutes. We will help him escape then. If I am late, all will be wasted. I do not know how we could get in touch with him again. Maybe never.”

  “I understand.”

  “Of course,” Baronas said. “We will be all right.”

  The camp was a snug one, but it was cold, bitterly cold. They were higher now, nearly four thousand feet above the sea. The Sikhote Alin Mountains were at no place in the southern part of the range higher than five thousand feet, but on the ridges in the middle of winter the cold could be intense.

  Talya could see that Yakov was worried. He kept looking from her father to her, and several times he walked out in the snow, muttering to himself.

  “Do not worry,” she said, over their tea, “we shall be all right.”

  “But it is winter!” he protested. “It is cold! And where you are going is far, far through the wilderness!”

  “It will be all right,” she said, and wished she felt she was being honest. She was sick with dread at being left alone, or almost alone, in all that vast forest.

  “I had only planned to tell you of the order for your arrest,” he explained. “Then I planned to go at once; now I must go very fast or I shall be late.”

  Long they talked as the night drew on and her father slept. He explained again and again how they must travel, what they had to fear, how they must camp. “Do not think of time,” he warned. “Short marches are best for you. Camp early, so you can be snugged in well before dark. In the darkness you can find nothing. Start early, but do not exhaust yourselves. Most people who freeze do so only because they have burned up their stores of energy before stopping to rest and have nothing left to fight the cold. Do not become exhausted.

  “I have some dried meat, and I will share with you. I can get more.”

  He fed sticks into the fire. “It is more than one hundred miles,” he said. “A long way.”

  “We will be all right,” she repeated, wishing she believed it.

  At daylight he was gone, but he looked back several times and left with reluctance. Natalya stood on the edge of the woods and watched him go off along the trail to the north, as dim a trail as lay before her and her father.

  He was sitting by the fire when she returned. “He is gone, then?”

  “Yes, Father.” She had made up her pack, purposely doing so while he slept, so that he would not realize she was carrying most of the weight. “We must push on, too.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” He shouldered his pack, and after a long searching look at him, she led off. She was frightened. He did not look at all well this morning. The cold, the rationed food, and the climbing were hard on him.

  Shortly before noon they stopped and she made tea. The sun was out briefly, and they felt warm even in its feeble rays. She kindled a small fire and talked of home, of Joe Mack, and of the trail.

  “The main ridge of the Sikhote Alin seems to parallel the coast,” she said, “but Yakov told me there was another ridge running off to the northwest that reaches almost to Iman. We will reach it soon and follow it until we can descend into the basin of the Vagou.”

  He made no reply, staring off across the snowy ridges and the treetops, covered with snow. “This is very hard for you, Talya,” he said at last. “Somehow I have been a poor father to lead you into this.”

  “You have been the best of fathers,” she replied, “and one day we will look back upon this as only an interlude.”

  For three days they walked, but on the third day he said, “Talya, I think we should stop early today. I am afraid I need to rest.”

  The weather was warmer by a few degrees, and the place they found
was nestled among some cedars, a place where a bank had caved away. At its base, shaded by the cedars, they built their fire. They had tea, but the last of the meat Yakov had given them to add to their meager supplies was gone but for three thin strips.

  “Save it for yourself,” her father said. “I’ll drink some tea, but I’ve no appetite tonight.”

  Morning came with softly falling snow. She built up the fire and said, “Father?”

  When he did not move, she got slowly to her feet and went to where he lay, his blue eyes open to the snow.

  “Father?” she pleaded.

  Her father was dead, and she was alone.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ON THE MORNING of the day that Bocharev came to the cabin above Plastun Bay, Peshkov returned to the village.

  It was a chill, bleak day, and he plodded down the path, finding no footprints in the snow. Nor did smoke arise from any of the chimneys. Hunching his shoulders against the cold, he went first to the Baronas cabin.

  He knocked, expecting no answer, and then he opened the door and stepped in. It was cold inside, and the ashes on the hearth were long dead.

  He stared around him, angry that they were gone, yet feeling oddly deserted, too. One by one he went to the other dugouts, caves, and shacks.

  Nobody. All were gone.

  To hell with them! Served them right if they’d all been taken away to prison! Especially that woman, that Natalya.

  Leave it to him. He knew how to get even. He hated them all, everyone except Yakov. He was afraid of Yakov.

  He had been afraid that night when the American was behind him with a knife. Damn him! How had he managed that? Anyway, he’d shown him! He was on the run now with half the army after him. They’d get him, too. He wished he could be there when it happened. He would just like to have the American see him there, smiling at him. Come to think of it, he had never found the place where the American had been hiding.

  He walked back to the Baronas cabin, snow crunching under his feet. There was fuel there, and he built a small fire. He would roast some meat over the fire, and then he would go have a look. It irritated him that he had not found it before. Then he could have waited outside and shot him when he emerged. He might have gotten a fat reward for that. They’d given him nothing for telling them where he was hiding.

  It was cold and miserable in the long-empty cabin. He stared around angrily. It had always been warm and somehow comfortable when they were here.

  He made tea and sipped it, squatting on his heels. Everybody was gone, so there was no sense in staying here. They had never liked him, none of them, but he knew them. That was the thing. He knew them and they knew him. They had always been glad enough to get the meat he brought. He’d made them pay for it, one way or another, until that American came, giving them all the meat he could kill.

  Where would he go now? Where could he go? He had thought them a miserable lot, even Baronas and that Natalya. Really thought well of themselves, they did. Well, all that education did them no good. They had been in the same fix he was, but now he had fixed them. And they were gone.

  Gone.

  The word had an empty sound. He had not liked them, but he had known them. Theirs were familiar faces. He had been comfortable around them even though he despised them. Now where could he go?

  They had all gone away, scattered like blown snow, but if he sat down he could probably figure out where they had gotten to. Baronas had been no trapper, so he would not be apt to go into the deeper woods. He had heard they were talking of going to some warmer place where the climate would be better for his health.

  A warmer place meant the coast of the Sea of Japan. At least, that was the closest place and the only place they could go. They would not dare try to go back into Russia. Anyway, they were not Russians.

  Peshkov was a hating man. For the first time in his life he understood that. There had never been anyone he liked. He had tramped with several men, but just because it was easier that way. He had gone along with them, deserting them when the occasion demanded. He was a trapper and a hunter, but a petty thief as well, taking whatever served his purpose and he could get away with. Larger and stronger than most men, he usually had no trouble. Few men were armed and most of them subject to bluff; the others he learned to avoid.

  Stephan Baronas had politely ignored him, and Natalya had quietly been in command at the little settlement, something he had resented from the start. In the first place, that she was only a woman; in the second, that she was Lithuanian. Her father had been looked up to among the refugees, but he was not one to relish command or authority. Little by little it had been Natalya who had responded to the needs of their little community. Peshkov’s efforts to take control had simply been ignored by everyone, and he had not known how to cope with that. Several times he had attempted to get her alone, thinking that when he did he would show her who he was and what she was to him. Unfortunately, when he finally succeeded, she proved to have a pistol and a willingness to use it.

  Seated beside a fire in what had been the Baronas cabin, he made up his mind. He would find her and show her who was boss. He would wound her if necessary, kill her if he decided it was in his best interests.

  To find her would be no great problem. He was a tramp and knew others of his kind. A woman so beautiful would be remembered. He smiled into his empty cup. Then he arose, put out the fire, and stowed away his gear.

  First, for his own satisfaction, he would find where the American had been hiding. Then he would hunt down Natalya Baronas.

  He was chuckling to himself, thinking of her horror when she would see him again. He would track her down when she was gathering fuel and strike her down. She would be tied up and helpless before she became conscious. He’d show her a thing or two.

  It took him a good two hours, during which time he became more and more irritated and impatient. He refused to believe the American could so outwit him, and it was on his third passing that he suddenly decided to explore that crack in the rock. He was a heavy man, and it was a tight squeeze, yet he forced his way through, glimpsing the shelf beyond. Vague sunlight was falling through the trees, and enough was visible so that he was sure he had found it.

  Right over there, within a step or two. He could see the place where a fire had been, and—

  He pushed himself through the last of the crack and stepped out quickly. After all, he wanted to be away from here before dark. He—

  In the instant he took his step he heard the water falling far below, but an instant too late.

  He felt himself falling, and wild with panic he dropped his rifle and grabbed out wildly. His fingers caught the edge and held on, and he hung suspended above the void.

  He was a strong man, but a heavy man wearing a heavy coat. A moment he hung, choking with fear, and then he tried to pull himself up.

  He couldn’t do it. His fingers seemed to slip and he cried out, calling for help.

  There was no one to hear. The village was deserted.

  He fought down the panic. He could get up there; he had to get up there. Using all his strength he pulled himself up and then tried to get an elbow over the edge.

  He made it. His elbow rested on the edge, and he pulled himself up further and swung a leg to the ledge.

  In one awful instant he felt the rock under his elbow crumble, and then he fell.

  He seemed to fall for a long time, and then he struck with a moment of stabbing agony and then brutal, unendurable pain. He lay on the rocks, half in the icy water, and stared up at the feeble light far above and knew his back was broken.

  * * *

  —

  EVGENY ZHIKAREV HAD waited and planned too long to accept defeat. Carefully, through his friends among the traders and dealers in furs, he put out feelers. From here and there he received news. An order had gone out for the arrest of Stephan and Natalya Barona
s. Zamatev was rounding up all who had had meetings or contact with the American, who was still at large. The village had been deserted, Botev and Borowsky had disappeared, and so had Baronas and his daughter. Evgeny Zhikarev knew his own time was short. Undoubtedly, an order for his arrest was already out.

  He was not a man to panic. He did not plan to be taken again. He had gone that route, with crippled feet to show for it, as well as some other scars.

  His cousin was growing restless, and he knew that his cousin wished he would go away. It had been a warm, wonderful visit, but as the visit lengthened the cousin’s patience grew shorter. No matter, he was going.

  He would go suddenly, without warning, for who knew about relatives these days? Which could you trust, if any? The Soviet system was founded upon suspicion and distrust.

  He had gone down into the town, taking his time, for he could walk but slowly. It was warm in the sun, and there was no snow in the town, although he could see it on the mountains. He had learned to use his eyes and ears and to pay attention, so within a short time he knew the business and the activities of most people along the street. Trucks and vans came here, unloading goods or loading furs, and he watched for a familiar face.

  Suddenly he sighted someone he knew. He started forward and then relaxed. His truck driver friend was involved with the black market, among other things, and might not wish to be seen. However, glancing over, the driver saw him and came over. “Still here? What do you know? I saw Potanin the other day!”

  “Potanin?” Zhikarev concealed his excitement. “Where?”

  “He’s got a post near Iman now.” He lowered his voice. “Up to his old tricks, too. If you’ve got some furs—?”

  “Are you going that way?”

  “Midnight.” He glanced around. “Furs,” he said, “Potanin an’ me. Trouble is, we’ve nobody over the river. You know?”