Last Of the Breed (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  There had been no words of love, no passionate clinging together, only a quiet understanding, something rich and warm and beautiful. Somehow, from the moment they met, there had been no doubt. She had not really considered it; she had not thought about it or dreamed of it. Suddenly he was there and she knew.

  Now, packing swiftly, she puzzled over it. What had he said? What had he done? How had he aroused this feeling in her? She had always been a cool, sensible sort, but this was a man on the run, a man of an alien people, even of a different race.

  He was an Indian, what had been considered a savage people. That, he said, was true no longer of his people, but it was true of him.

  Could he be savage? She thought of that and admitted it was more than possible. How else could he exist out there in the wilderness? In the snow? And now, with the terrible winter more than half gone, he was still alive, still out there, still somehow avoiding capture.

  She turned on Yakov. “Could it be morning? A few hours’ sleep would prepare us for it.”

  He shrugged. “The further you are away, the better. I can come with you but a little way. I must not be found here, or found at all,” he added, somewhat grimly. “I can help you for a few miles, and then I must be away.”

  “Father? Get some sleep. We all must.” She turned to Yakov. “Before daybreak, then?”

  He shrugged. “It is a risk.”

  Yakov built up the fire; then he took an AK-47 from his pack and checked it. The sound of the action opening and closing was ominous in the small cabin.

  Her father’s weariness was obvious in the quickness with which he slept. She saw Yakov look at him and then shake his head.

  She lay down without undressing. There would be no time in the morning. Staring up at the ceiling, she tried to think of what they must do. There was a dim path up through the forest that did not begin until beyond several small clearings. She had walked up that trail no more than a mile, but it led into dense forest. In the summer she would have explored it further, but in this weather, in the winter —

  There had been snowshoes in the cabin, and they belonged there. No matter, they must take them. If they escaped, they could send payment for them.

  If they escaped —

  She lay long awake, staring up into the darkness, lighted only by the flickering flames of the dying fire.

  How could they possibly escape? An old man and a young woman, an old man who had never been considered physical.

  And even when they reached the border, how could they cross? The river they would reach would not be the Amur but the Ussuri; yet it was a large river, and it would be patrolled.

  The opening of the door awakened her, for it let in a cold breath of wind. She sat up quickly. It was Yakov.

  “It is time, and we must hurry.”

  As she moved to stir up the fire, he stopped her. “The fire is out; the ashes are cold. Leave it that way, and they will not know when we left.”

  She was prepared. Her father dressed quickly, and they took up their bundles and went outside. It was snowing, a soft, gentle snow whispering down, covering all.

  She led the way up through the trees where they had gathered wood, across a sort of clearing, and then around the huge tree she remembered and into a trail that was only a mere parting between low-growing shrubs.

  Yakov turned to look back. The snow was already obscuring their tracks. “In minutes,” he told her, “they will be gone. Let us be moving.”

  It was cold and crisp. She moved along, purposely holding down the pace because of her father. The trail wound through the trees, and she found her memory of the first mile was good. “I could become an Indian,” she told herself. “I could even live in the forest.”

  The Iodzihe River lay to their right, and the forest through which they were going was cut by a small stream that flowed down to that river. Yakov moved past her. “Let me break trail now,” he said. “I did not know where it began.”

  The snow was deep under the trees. What they could see of the sky was overcast and a dull gray. The trees were stark and black against the whiteness of the snow. Not a breath of wind was stirring now, and the forest was very still. Once she saw a bird glide off among the trees, following their same path through the forest.

  Many massive oak and maple trees mingled with what her father told her were Korean pine and, of course, birch, with which she was familiar. Steadily, by a winding route, they climbed.

  Along the streams there were cottonwoods, some of the largest she had ever seen.

  The morning was cold, but not too cold, and after they had traveled for what she believed was two miles, they paused to rest. In all this time, except for the one bird, they had seen no living thing. Now, standing close, they talked in low tones.

  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.

  Chapter 33

  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 h
e 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.