by Sam Eastland
Sedov was lifted from his sled. The silhouette of his body, outlined in blood, remained on the rough wooden planks. Pekkala and Lavrenov laid him down in the snow, but he began to choke, nostrils flaring as he struggled to breathe. Instead they sat him with his back against a tree. Helplessly, they watched the wounded man, knowing that the help he required was beyond any skills they possessed.
KLENOVKIN CRAWLED OUT from under his desk, a pistol clutched in his hand. When the attack began, the commandant had been asleep in his office, head on his desk with a pile of requisition slips for a pillow. Jarred awake by the noise, he first thought that there had been an explosion in the mine. His semiconscious brain was already composing the damage report he would have to make to Dalstroy when, arriving in the outer office, he saw the main gates ripped from their mountings and Ostyaks waiting on the other side. At that point, Klenovkin grabbed his gun off the bookshelf, locked the door, and took cover beneath the desk, determined to shoot anyone who tried to get in.
But no one did.
Now the shooting had stopped. The camp was silent again.
Zebra stripes of sunlight gleamed through the shuttered windows.
Relieved as Klenovkin was to have been left alone by the Ostyaks, he could not help feeling a certain indignation that none of the guards had come to rescue him.
He could not fathom why the Ostyaks had mounted an assault on the camp. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He wondered what offense, conjured from their primitive and superstitious minds, had sent them on the warpath. In spite of what had happened, Klenovkin was not overly concerned. The camp guards, with their superior firepower and Sergeant Gramotin to lead them, would certainly have fought off any Ostyaks who managed to enter the camp. Nor did he worry about any prisoners attempting to escape, especially when there were Ostyaks around.
The sooner he made his way out to the compound, the fewer questions would be raised about his actions during the attack. Anxious to give the impression that he had been in the thick of the fighting, Klenovkin removed a bullet from his gun, detached the round from the brass cartridge and poured the gray sand of gunpowder into his palm. Then he spat on the powder, stirred it into a paste with his finger and daubed the mixture on his face.
Still cautious, Klenovkin climbed to his feet and peered between the shutters. The damage was worse than he’d thought.
Pale shreds of wood, all that remained of the gates, lay scattered across the compound. The two guard towers had burned and collapsed. One of the barracks was also on fire. Tar paper blazed on its roof, shingles curling like black fists in the heat. In an effort to stop the blaze from spreading, a couple of prisoners were shoveling snow up onto the roof, which seemed to have no effect at all.
Other prisoners had gathered at the cookhouse, where Melekov, refusing to alter his habits, was now handing out the breakfast rations.
In the center of the compound, a guard was kneeling on the ground, a rifle, with bayonet attached, propped against his shoulder.
Klenovkin looked closer, and recognized Platov, that idiot lapdog of Gramotin. The first thing he would do when he embarked on his inspection tour was to tell that lazy fool to get up and go back to work. But then he noticed that the rifle wasn’t resting against Platov’s shoulder as he had first imagined. In fact, Platov had been stabbed through the throat with the bayonet, which now protruded from the back of his neck. Platov was dead, propped up by the rifle, which had prevented him from falling.
No one had touched the body.
The spit dried up in Klenovkin’s mouth. Turning from the window, he picked up the phone and dialed the guardhouse. “This is Klenovkin. What is the situation?” Hearing the reply, he suddenly appeared to lose his balance and grabbed hold of the corner of his desk. “They what? All of them? With the Ostyaks? And Pekkala, too? Are you certain of this? Who has gone after them? What do you mean, nobody? You were waiting for my orders? Do you honestly think you need my permission to chase after escaped prisoners? I don’t care if the Ostyaks were with them! Get after them now! Now!” Klenovkin slammed down the receiver.
As the full measure of this disaster became clear to him, all the strength seemed to pour from his body.
He would be held responsible. His career was finished. Dalstroy would have him replaced. And that was the least of his worries. These were not just any prisoners. These were the Comitati, and for their escape he would answer directly to Moscow. His only chance was to blame Pekkala, in the hopes of deflecting Stalin’s fury.
Klenovkin slid the phone into the center of his desk. After breathing in and out several times, like a runner preparing for a race, he dialed the Kremlin.
Time slowed to a crawl as he listened to the click and crackle of the empty line. Vaguely, he recalled the night before, when his promotion through the ranks of Dalstroy had seemed a certainty. Last night felt like a dream, borrowed out of someone else’s life. Now a great spiraling darkness appeared in front of him, and Klenovkin felt himself drawn helplessly into its vortex. Finally he heard the distant purr of the telephone ringing in Moscow.
“Kremlin!” barked Poskrebyshev.
“This is Commandant Klenovkin.”
“Who?”
“Klenovkin. Commandant of the camp at Borodok. You gave me this number.”
“Ah. Borodok. Yes. You are calling to confirm that the liquidation of Pekkala has been carried out.”
“Not exactly.” Klenovkin inhaled, ready to explain, but before he had the chance a new voice broke in on the line.
“Put him through,” Stalin ordered.
Klenovkin felt as if the air had been punched out of his lungs.
Poskrebyshev pressed a button on his telephone, transferring the line to Stalin’s desk. But the secretary did not hang up as he should have done. Instead, he placed the receiver gently on his desk, then bent forward until his ear was almost pressed against it. His teeth gritted with concentration, Poskrebyshev strained to hear what was being said.
“Has Pekkala been executed,” demanded Stalin, “or hasn’t he?”
Klenovkin knew that the next words out of his mouth would change his life forever. As he tried to compose himself before delivering the answer, he stared at the white cloud of a snow squall riding in over the valley in the distance. It occurred to him that with a snowstorm coming in, all trace of the escape would be wiped clean and the prisoners would vanish forever in the taiga.
“Klenovkin? Are you there?”
“Yes, Comrade Stalin.”
“What has become of Pekkala?”
“I beg to report that the inspector escaped before I had a chance to carry out your orders.”
“Escaped? When?”
“This morning.”
“But you received my instructions last night! He should have been shot within five minutes of your reading the message!”
“I decided to wait until morning, Comrade Stalin.”
“And what purpose could that possibly have served?” spluttered Stalin.
Ransacking his mind, Klenovkin could no longer reconstruct the train of thought in which postponing Pekkala’s execution had seemed such a good idea to him only a few hours before. “There is more, Comrade Stalin.”
“More?” he bellowed. “What else have you bungled, Klenovkin?”
“The men of the Kolchak Expedition have also managed to escape.”
For the next few seconds only a faint rustling could be heard, which neither Stalin nor Klenovkin realized was, in fact, the sound of Poskrebyshev’s breathing as he eavesdropped on the conversation.
“It is all Pekkala’s fault,” protested Klenovkin. “He made threats against you, Comrade Stalin!”
“Threats.” Stalin echoed the word. Until that moment, he’d seen no reason to doubt the camp commandant’s words, but now suspicions were gathering, like storm clouds in his mind. “What did he say exactly?”
Klenovkin was not prepared for this. He had assumed that the mere mention of a threat against the leader o
f the country would be enough. “What exactly?” he stammered. “Grave threats. Serious allegations, Comrade Stalin.”
There was another long pause. “Pekkala never made any threats, did he?”
“Why would you say such a thing?” pleaded Klenovkin.
“It occurs to me now, Klenovkin, that Pekkala has stood before me many times, wearing that English cannon he keeps strapped against his chest, and I have never had cause to fear him. If Pekkala wanted to kill me he would do it first and talk about it afterwards. It is not in his nature to make threats. In short, Commandant, I suspect you are lying to me.”
Klenovkin’s whole body went numb. The thought of continuing this deception seemed beyond any willpower he possessed. It was as if Stalin were staring straight into his soul. “There were no threats,” he confessed.
“Listen to me carefully.” Stalin sounded eerily calm. “I want you to take out the file of Inspector Pekkala.”
Klenovkin had expected Stalin to rage at him, but the softness in his leader’s voice caught him by surprise. In his desperation, he took this as a sign that he might still come through unscathed. Sliding open his desk drawer, he removed Pekkala’s file. “I have it here—Prisoner 4745.”
“Now I want you to take out his information sheet.”
“I’ve got it. And what next, Comrade Stalin?”
“I want you to destroy it.”
“Destroy it?” he croaked. “But why?”
“Because as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Inspector Pekkala was never there”—Stalin’s voice was rising now—“and I will not have the Kremlin embroiled in some Dalstroy inquiry into your failure to carry out your duties! Now burn the sheet, and this time there will be no delay.”
Stunned, Klenovkin took out his cigarette lighter and set fire to the corner of the paper. The document burned quickly. Soon all that remained was a fragile curl of ash, which Klenovkin dropped into the green metal garbage can beside his desk. “It’s done,” he said.
“Good! Now—”
There was a sharp click. The line from Borodok went dead.
“Poskrebyshev,” said Stalin.
Poskrebyshev held his breath and said nothing.
“Poskrebyshev, I know you are listening.”
Clumsily, Poskrebyshev snatched up the receiver and fumbled as he pressed it against his ear. “Yes, Comrade Stalin!”
“Get me Major Kirov.”
KLENOVKIN LAY on the floor of his study, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Clutched in his fist was a pistol, smoke still leaking from the barrel. A spray of blood peppered the wall. Beneath it lay the back of Klenovkin’s skull, torn loose by the impact of the bullet and looking almost exactly like the handsome onyx ashtray on his desk, presented to him by Dalstroy for his fifteen years of loyal service.
AS PEKKALA WALKED around the clearing, the circulation slowly returned to his frozen legs and arms. At the edge of the trees, he came across some charred wooden beams. Next he kicked up some old glass jars, twisted by the fire which had consumed the cabin that once stood here.
In that moment, he realized that these were the ruins of his own cabin, where he had lived for years as a tree-marker for the Borodok lumber operation.
These melted shards of glass had once been part of a window in his cabin. Lacking other means, he had collected pickle jars left behind by the logging crews, stacked them on their sides with the mouths facing inward, and then caulked the gaps with moss.
He remembered seeing the northern lights through those makeshift panes of glass; the vast curtains of green and white and pink rippling like some sea creature in the blackness of the ocean’s depths.
Where Sedov lay bleeding, Pekkala recalled lying in the shade to escape the summer heat, chewing the bitter, clover-shaped leaves of wood sorrel to slake his thirst, and how the beds of dried lichen would rustle beneath the weight of his body, with a sound like a toothless old man eating crackers.
His eyes strayed to where his storage shed had been, constructed on poles above the ground to discourage mice from devouring his meager supplies of pine nuts, sunflower seeds, and dried strips of a fish called grayling, which he sometimes caught in the streams that flowed through this valley.
In the decade since he had been here last, a number of young trees had grown around the clearing. The skeletons of brambles lay like coils of barbed wire among the puffed and blackened logs which had been a part of his home. It had taken him weeks to clear this space, and it startled him to see how thoroughly the forest had reclaimed the ground. In a few more years, there would be little to show that this place had been the center of Pekkala’s world, each tree and stone as known to him as the freckles constellationed on his arms.
On the other side of the clearing, Kolchak crouched down before Sedov. He scooped up some snow and touched it against Sedov’s lips.
“I told you it wouldn’t be long before we were living like kings,” whispered Sedov, “but I didn’t think I’d reach the Promised Land so soon.”
Kolchak did not reply. Gently, he patted Sedov’s cheek, then stood and walked away.
Tarnowski pulled him aside and, in an urgent whisper, said, “We can’t just leave him here.”
“And we can’t take him with us,” replied Kolchak. “He would only slow us down.”
“The guards from the camp will find Sedov. You don’t know what they’ll do to him.”
“It doesn’t matter what they do,” Kolchak snapped. “By the time those men get here, Sedov will be dead.”
The Ostyaks beckoned them back to the sleds.
“We must leave,” said one of them. “This is a bad place.” He pointed to the ruins of Pekkala’s cabin. “A bad place,” he repeated.
The last Pekkala saw of Sedov, he was still sitting against the tree. His head had fallen forward, chin resting on his chest. Either he was sleeping or else he was already dead.
They did not stop again until they reached the tracks, arriving at the place where the main line of the Trans-Siberian branched off towards the Borodok railhead.
Kolchak jumped down from his sled. “Now let’s gather what belongs to us and get out of here.”
Still carrying the rifle he had stolen from the camp, Tarnowski stood in the middle of the tracks. Nervously, he looked up and down the rails, which glowed like new lead in the dingy light. “It’s hard to say, Colonel.”
Kolchak joined him on the tracks. “What do you mean? You told me to bring you to the place where the railroad forked down towards the camp. Here is the fork. Now where is the gold?”
Tarnowski scratched at his face, like a man who had stepped into cobwebs. “When we came around a bend in the tracks …”
“Keep your voice down,” hissed Kolchak. “If those Ostyaks learn where you’ve hidden the gold, they’ll leave us behind and steal everything for themselves.”
From then on, the two men held a muttered conversation. “We spotted a small cliff right beside a pond,” Tarnowski continued. “We buried the crates on the other side of that pond. I thought we would be able to see it from here, but it’s been a long time, Colonel. The mind plays tricks …”
“You realize, Lieutenant Tarnowski, that we are almost certainly being followed, by men whose incentive for killing us is that they will lose their own lives if they fail. It will take time to dig up the gold, especially since the ground is frozen. After that, it’s a race for the border. I don’t need to tell you that if they catch up with us again, no one’s going to spare your life this time.”
“It can’t be far, Colonel,” Tarnowski reassured him. “If we send a sled in each direction, one of them is sure to find it. The rest of us can wait here.”
The Ostyaks watched and waited, knowing they were not trusted. The caribou, sensing hostility in the air, shifted nervously in their harnesses.
“All right,” said Kolchak. “Tell the Ostyaks what we’re going to do. I’ll go on one sled and you take the other. If you’re the one who spots the cliff, make sure you
travel past it before you order the Ostyak to turn around. Otherwise, you’ll give away the location without even saying a word.”
Climbing on a sled, Kolchak set off to the west along the tracks. Tarnowski turned to the east.
The snow was still falling as they headed out.
The sleds faded into the white, as if cataracts clouded the eyes of those who watched them go.
IN THE COMPOUND of the Borodok camp, the body of Platov still knelt in a puddle of blood.
To Gramotin, staring down at him, the dead man looked like a Muslim kneeling on a red prayer rug.
Gramotin’s face showed a mixture of anger and disgust. He could not make up his mind whether to be angry at the man who had murdered Platov or disgusted at Platov for dying. He rested his hand on Platov’s shoulder, as if to offer consolation.
Unbalanced by the weight of Gramotin’s touch, the corpse keeled over on its side.
Gramotin picked up the rifle, sliding the bayonet out of Platov’s neck. He cleaned the blade by wiping it on the dead man’s coat, then shouldered the weapon and made his way to the commandant’s office.
Gramotin knocked on the door, slamming his fist against the flimsy wooden panels. There was no reply. Gramotin tried the handle, but it was locked. Already out of patience, he raised one boot and kicked in the door.
The first thing Gramotin saw when he walked in was a splatter of blood on the wall. The room smelled of gun smoke. Then he caught sight of Klenovkin’s body, lying stretched out on the floor behind his desk. The pistol was still in his hand. It was obvious that Klenovkin had shot himself.
Gramotin thought he knew the reason why. Lying on Klenovkin’s desk was the empty file belonging to prisoner 4745.
“Pekkala,” muttered Gramotin. He turned his head and spat onto the floor.
He was aware that the convict had escaped, having witnessed it with his own eyes. When the attack began, Gramotin had been up in one of the guard towers. Stepping out onto the walkway, he spotted Pekkala running towards the gates. He raised his rifle and fired at the running man. The first shot missed, which did not surprise Gramotin, since he was a poor shot even on his best days, but the second time he had Pekkala square in his sights. Before he had time to shoot, a bullet had come out of nowhere and struck the butt of his rifle, knocking him off his feet. Gramotin slipped off the walkway and fell into the ditch below. Landing in a dirty heap of snow, he had not suffered any injury, but by the time he crawled out of the ditch, Pekkala and the Comitati were gone.
