by Earl Nelson
In a little while, two guys came out and brought bales of hay out of the barn for the horses, provided water, and left them.
I got my nerve up and crept closer to the building the soldiers were staying in. They had set up a firepit outside of their barracks and cooking their breakfast. I about threw up at the smell of sausage.
I watched them for the rest of the morning. There were ten of them. That made a total of fifteen counting the guys on patrol. I wondered why they had so many horses.
I had enough Russian now to know they were bored. They played chess, tossed horseshoes, and gripped about this duty. At the same time, they all agreed that this was good duty. Watching illegal fur trappers was easy. Especially when you weren’t expected to catch any.
An officer would come by once a week. He had been here two days ago, so I had some time. I repeated my surveillance the next day, it was the same routine. Late in the day, the patrol came out and another would leave in the morning.
I found a good use for that cabbage. I befriended one of the better-looking horses in the back corral. He was the only one that wandered up to me when I approached the corral from the back.
Chapter 22
That afternoon when the soldiers were either playing games or taking a nap I snuck into the barn. I found treasure. Not only were there extra tack and saddles there were spare uniforms in their original cartons.
Trying not to disturb them I found one the closest to my size. The arms and legs stuck out a little but not much, they were probably for a guy six foot three inches.
The best thing was that there were underwear and socks. I couldn’t wait to get out of my clothes into these. There were even heavy coats and hats made for the Siberian winter. Taking what I needed, I carefully closed all the boxes and moved them to the bottom of the pile.
It took two of the Russian army backpacks to hold the gear. I cautiously crept out of the barn with my trophies. After stashing them back in the woods I crept back for a saddle blanket, tack, and saddle.
When I had these, I moved away from the corrals. I anxiously awaited the evening routine where they watered the horses. It went off with no problems they didn’t notice anything missing.
Waiting an hour to make certain no one was coming back out I removed logs from the corral. The uprights had holes in them where the crossbars fit. I slid them out and gently shooed the horses out.
All except my new friend. I slipped a bit into his mouth and a bridle over his head. He was well broken in and took it well. He didn’t even fill his stomach with air when I tighten the cinch.
I led him to my other gear, saddled him, placed the backpacks on his rump, one to a side, and mounted.
I turned him south in a gentle turn and let him amble away.
I had to laugh a little, I had a six-shooter and had just stolen a horse. This was as good as any of my movies. The horse was fresh in that he was rested from doing nothing all day. Riding him was like being in a rocking chair. Easy rider.
We ambled south through the night. It was coming up daybreak, so I found a secluded spot and set up a dry camp. After unsaddling and caring for my horse which I had yet to name, I ate some jerky and fell asleep.
When I woke it was late afternoon? I broke camp saddled up the horse and went on our way. We crossed a stream early on where I let him drink his fill. I also filled the canteen I had found in the Russian storage shed.
I had two hopes, one was that they thought the horses had pushed the fence over and wandered away on their own and that they would figure this horse had wandered further than the others. The second hope was they wouldn’t notice the empty boxes at the bottom of their supplies.
If those hopes made it, I will have a long head start. They would have just found the corral with its fence down at daybreak when they fed and watered the horses, so I had a rather good lead.
It was nice not having to walk. I made a few more miles a day but the big benefit was the lack of wear and tear on my feet and legs. My butt paid for it, but I was getting used to riding again.
All went well for the next several days, but I saw that horse, not much of a name, but that was it, was about to lose a shoe.
I had to walk but at least the horse carried the backpacks. I came upon a trail. I thought about going into the woods and walking parallel until I knew what was going on.
I followed it for about fifty yards and rounded a bend into another Soviet Army camp. This one was much larger.
Several soldiers looked up from what they were doing, exactly what I couldn’t tell, but they went back to it, ignoring me.
One guy a Sergeant came up to me and pointed over his shoulder. In Russian, he told me, “The farrier is over there he will take care of you.”
I just nodded and led Horse towards the farrier. It must have been a slow day in the horseshoeing business because the farrier took over Horse and reshod him. Not only the loose one but all four. He trimmed the hooves and did as good a job as I had seen done on the movie sets.
He finished up and grunted at me which I took as a sign to move on. I did. I continued south through the camp and kept moving. No one questioned me. My clothes were from the army, but I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Anyway, I remounted Horse and continued south.
As soon as I was out of sight of the camp, I left the trail and headed out at a right angle. Someone might wake up back there.
After heading east for an hour, I turned south again through the monotonous woods. This section was more like a park. There wasn’t much undergrowth.
I made another dry camp. I was reluctant to light a fire this close to the army. The next day I felt a little safer. I saw several herds of deer. My food supply was getting low, so I tied Horse and stalked the herd.
Great hunter, I’m not but these deer weren’t afraid of predators. They must not have been hunted much. I got close enough that it was an easy kill with my longbow.
That evening I continued the train of thought I had all day long. After I found the Siberian railroad which direction should I go. West towards Moscow or east towards the Pacific then south through Manchuria to Beijing.
Beijing made the most sense, but Moscow had its attractions. The Soviets owed me for all this grief and that seemed like a good place to collect.
Another problem I faced was that I had no money. It didn’t matter right now out in the woods but when I got near civilization it would become a necessity. I couldn’t go to a bank and make a withdrawal. Or could I?
That would take some thought.
One thing I had been worried about was wolves. I thought Siberia would be full of them.
I hadn’t seen or heard any, that is until this night. They were howling all over the place. I felt like they were all saying, “Hey, Ricky Jackson is over here, let's get him.”
I was short on sleep the next morning and Horse wasn’t so spry.
We continued south.
That night I lit a fire. I would take my chances on soldiers being around, it was the wolves that scared me.
It worked, well, at least there were no wolves around last night. About noon the next day I came upon something I was becoming to think was a legend. The Siberian Railway.
At this section of the railway, there were two sets of tracks so trains could go in both directions. That wasn’t true of the entire length.
The problem was that I didn’t know where I was on the rail line. By my best reckoning, it could be anywhere from eight hundred to twelve hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean and lord knows how many miles from Moscow.
Which direction should I go?
I decided to watch the trains go by to see if I could pick up any clues.
I got comfortable back behind the tree line so no one could spot me from a train. Trains went by about every hour, one in each direction. They didn’t tell me a thing.
If I had a coin, I would have flipped it, so I decided to head west in the morning after a night's sleep. I headed west in the morning. Eit
her direction had a chance of getting to a small village, I had no idea how far that small village might be.
It turned out that small village was a hundred miles down the track. If I had gone east, it would have been ten miles.
When I realized that there was a village up ahead, I got off the dirt track that ran parallel to the rails. Moving several miles north of the village I search for a vantage point to check things out. I couldn’t just ride into town. Though it had worked at the army camp.
Calling it a village was kind. There was the rail station, consisting of an open platform. About ten cottages, a general store, and two bars were the whole town. I would stick out like a sore thumb if I went there.
I was tired from my kidnapping, torture, time in the gulag, and the journey to this point. I was out of ideas, what was I going to do?
One thing it wasn’t going to be was give up
Chapter 23
I decided to take a closer look at the town. I mounted Horse and rode in as if I belonged there. I tied him at a hitching post in front of one of the bars.
I thought I would look inside to see what I could learn. As I started to open the door two men staggered out. They were dressed like train crew.
One was in better shape than the other. As I started to brush past them the one in the worse shape threw up and promptly fell dead drunk to the world.
His buddy asked me in Russian, “You help?”
Having nothing better to do I helped him pick up the drunk guy.
“Go to train?”
I didn’t answer, I put the drunk guy over the horse's back, sorry Horse, and started towards the train platform. It was only a hundred yards or so.
The walking drunk guy asked, “You shovel coal?”
The fact that I understood him made me realized that I had learned some Russian.
“Da.”
We took the drunk guy and pored him into the engine cab. That was a chore. The engine was tall, I had to climb a ladder built into the side of the engine and dropped him on the floor.
I went back down to the other guy, who I figured out was the Train Engineer. He tried to push me back up the ladder. I came on down and told him,
“Not give up horse.”
A light bulb seemed to come on and he started towards the rear of the train, I followed leading my horse. We came to an open car which turned out to be a stock car. He kicked an attendant awake and had the horse taken aboard.
I got Horse settled, making certain his gear and saddle were put up. There was grain in a bin and water. It was the best food he had seen in days, and he was right at home.
The Engineer and I went back up front. The whole time I was thinking, this is no way to run a railroad.
We climbed back up into the locomotive cab. It had the smell of cinders and steam. I was surprised when I saw a nameplate for the Engine. It was a 2-10-0 made by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, Eddystone PA.
It didn’t take much to figure out that I had to shovel coal in the firebox. The engineer showed me the footplate I had to step on to open the door. Even at a reduced fire, it was like looking into Hell itself.
I made a vow not to get too close when I shovel coal in. I was lucky they had a fresh load of coal, so I didn’t have to go too far to get it. When the coal car started to empty it would be real work.
I shoveled coal until the Engineer said stop.
On the platform, a guy who we would call a conductor waved a lantern. That was our go-ahead signal. We were heading towards the west, Moscow here I come.
The Engineer pulled back on his throttle lever and nothing seemed to happen. Then the engine started to huff and puff with escaping steam.
Like a glacier, the train started to move. The train was a short one of only about fifty cars. They were all box cars or the several stock cars, so I had no idea what we were hauling.
At one point I stepped on the hand of the drunk guy passed out on the deck. I checked he was still alive.
We picked up speed, we must have been doing forty or fifty miles an hour, which didn’t seem like much, but it was more than Horse and I could do.
About three hours into our journey the drunk fireman started to show signs of life. Not much, a lot of moaning and groaning.
He finally managed to stand up, pee over the side of the moving train, and promptly laid down and went back to sleep.
It was a good thing that I had been using an ax and doing physical labor because this was hard work.
Another two hours and we pulled into another station. The fireman stood up and looked around. The Engineer pushed him up against the side of the cab and took his wallet. He emptied it with a fistful of roubles and handed them to me.
“Spasibo.”
I took it that my temporary employment was over. I climbed down and went back to the stock car and retrieved Horse and all my gear. I thought most would be missing but it appeared to be all there.
I gave the stockman, a kid of about twelve, twenty roubles. I had been given two hundred and fifty, so it didn’t seem much. I had no idea what they would be worth.
I soon found out as the train platform had a small café. That is if you counted two sawhorses with a door and four chairs in a café.
There was no menu, you sat down, and they served what they had. There was a sign stating ten roubles. I placed a ten down and I ate like I was starving, which I was. Have I mentioned that I hate sausage?
I had tied Horse to a post which I could see from my seat. No one approached him but I saw several people slow and look as they walked by.
Not wanting to tempt fate or any thieves who might try to steal my stolen horse I finished up and headed out along the tracks going east. I got out of sight of the town and left the track and moved into the forest.
It was easy going once I was out of sight of the tracks. I went another ten miles or so on Horse then started looking for a campsite. There was a nice one, sheltered from the wind, which was getting a bit nasty at this time of year and had a water supply. There was also good grazing for Horse.
After my day of physical labor, I was tired. I made a small fire and set up the two-man tent I had taken from the outpost barn. My fire was up against a boulder that acted as a reflector, so I was warm.
The Russian army issued good cold weather sleeping bags, so I was set for the night. The horse was hobbled, I was warm, life was good, kinda.
The next day I continued my journey west. I had no idea if anyone was looking for me now. Well, they know I was gone from the camp, so they knew I had run for it. The dogs would have tracked me to that cliff.
Would they think of a hang glider? Would they put it together with a missing horse at a remote outpost? Who knew? I think the odds were in my favor.
They were at least for now, as I got closer to true civilization they would drop dramatically. I needed funds and identity papers. How was I going to get them?
My first thought was that if I could get money. I could buy papers. Then I realized that I would be dealing with the underworld and that there had to be a reward out of me. I would be turned in, in a heartbeat.
I still needed money but that wouldn’t take care of the identity paper issue.
Where do you even get real identity papers? I had been told by the NKVD office, but I wanted to confirm that.
I decided I needed to get an answer to this question.
After two days of travel, I came across another small train stop. These stops served small farms and logging camps in the interior. I was more than ready for a bath, clean clothes, and a good meal, anything but sausage.
The whistle-stop town had what I needed. There wasn’t a hotel, but enough trappers, farmers, and loggers came into town searching for a bath that there was a public bath. It only cost me fifty kopeks which was a deal.
Clean with a freshly trimmed beard I got dressed in my second set of clothes. My first set which was a reeking mess I had given to a washerwoman to see what she could salvage.
While she worked on t
hose I went to a small restaurant. They had a menu. There was ham, rabbit, or sausage. I chose the rabbit. I hadn’t had time to hunt any game, so it had been a while since I had any.
The restaurant was a bar/restaurant combination, and a guy was sitting there nursing a beer. He nursed it the whole time I was eating.
When I finished my meal, I joined him. My waitress understood my waving two fingers and brought us a beer each.
The guy looked at me like I was his savior.
I opened with, “Where does one get their lost identity papers replaced around here?”
I don’t want to give the impression that my Russian was anything near fluent, but it was getting better. At least he understood my question.
“The NKVD office.”
“I know that, where is it?”
“Oh, I wondered why you didn’t know NKVD issued, their building is two streets down, turn left and you can’t miss it.”
“Spasibo.”
I rode Horse out of town passing the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. I rode five miles out and made a dry camp. I had no sooner got off my horse than I realized I had forgotten to pick up my laundry.
I rode the five miles back and collected it. I didn’t want to make too many waves in town so that people would remember me. I was planning something that should take care of both my problems.
I tipped the washerwoman a full rouble, she had done a wonderful job.
Chapter 24
I lay down and rested for several hours and waited until early evening. Rested enough. I saddled the horse up and rode back into town. I left him tied in the woods, closest to the NKVD building as I could get. Next, I walked around the area. As normal in a small town like this, there was no one around.
I even walked up and down the alleys that bisected the block the NKVD building was on. The building was a red brick, two-story-tall building. It wasn't that large as would be expected in a small town this far out.
