Novel 1986 - Last Of The Breed (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  He got to his feet. “I go back now. It is far to go. You spik my name.” He shrugged. “I do not know. It is a woman who spik yes or no.” He waved a hand. “You go.”

  Joe Mack stood and watched him go, but Yakov did not look back. Again he looked at the crude map drawn in the clay; then he rubbed it out.

  Yakov, a strange one. He had ferried Joe Mack across the river, set him on his path and then returned to doing whatever had been on his mind. Whatever it was required an AK-47.

  A woman who says yes or no? What manner of woman? He had read of beautiful Russian women, but that was in Tsarist days. The only Soviet women he had encountered had been Russian athletes whose femininity was doubtful, to say the least. He had seen others in photographs, but with the clothes they wore it was hard to say if they were attractive.

  In any event, that was a bridge he did not propose to cross. Somewhere to the eastward he would find shelter and somehow endure the winter.

  Yakov had taken him across the river, and for that he was grateful. Now he must survive, and that night by the campfire he worked at his bow, tapering it slightly, testing it from time to time by bending it over his knee. And that night it was cold, so very, very cold. Merely a taste of what was to come.

  In the morning he made arrows, choosing the light wood with care, straightening and smoothing them. After two days he started on, his arrow shafts carried in a crude quiver until such a time as he could make better.

  Ahead somewhere was the Olekma River, and he knew the name. Often he had sat with flyers who knew or had studied Siberia.

  He knew that four of the greatest rivers in the world poured out of Siberia—the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena, and the Amur. He knew that the United States was more than 3,000,000 square miles, but that Siberia was more than 5,000,000, and there were vast areas still almost unknown except to native peoples.

  From obsidian, found the second night after leaving Yakov, he chipped out arrowheads that were masterpieces of the art. As he worked he studied the country. No matter where he stopped he must ever be alert, watching the country, noting every subtle change of air or wind.

  Yet now, for the first time since leaving home as a small child to attend school, he was lonely. Not for people, but for something else, he felt some indescribable yearning, some reaching out from within him, some strange wanting.

  He looked now across the vastness that lay before him, from the bare and icy mountains that arose around him, across the forest to the bare knife ridges that hacked the sky, and he felt that longing again.

  If tonight he should die, who would remember? Who would inter his body? Burn his flesh? He would be left to the wolves and the gluttons, to the vultures and the ants. He would have come and gone and left nothing behind by which he could be remembered. He had no wife, no son, no daughter.

  He was what a Sioux had been bred to be, a warrior. Of the four virtues expected of a warrior, he had two, bravery and fortitude. Did he have generosity? And wisdom?

  When he was a boy and killed meat, there were no others with whom to share it. Yet when he had left for school he had given his favorite horse to a friend. At the university, except for those with whom he played football or went out for track, he walked alone. He was, because of his extensive reading and his grandfather’s guidance, an apt and ready pupil. He learned quickly and was diligent as well. He knew women were attracted to him, and he danced well, but he was not drawn to any particular girl. He kept much to himself, and with each vacation he vanished into the mountains. He felt no enmity toward the white man. They had superior weapons and better strategy, and he recognized that fact. The white man occupied the land, but the Sioux had taken the Black Hills from the Kiowa, and they in turn had taken it from others.

  He was fiercely proud and walked tall, proud of being an Indian and proud of his place in the white man’s world. He had known from childhood that he would be a soldier; the flying came later. He found he had an immediate grasp of the necessities of flying and an instinctive appreciation for a finely tuned machine. He liked flying and he liked testing. He liked taking a machine to its utmost and just a little beyond, and his skills and his ear enabled him to detect the slightest weakness or tendency toward weakness.

  He had known at once why the Russians had seized him, and he was determined to give them nothing. Escape had been the first thing in his mind, and he had been alert for any chance. His eye had measured the wire, the distance to the forest, the time needed. He had noted the slender pipe and remembered using it as a young boy. It lacked the resilience of contemporary poles but was not unlike those used in earlier competition.

  He had known at once what he must do and how to do it. The Englishman’s aid had been an unexpected plus that had made all the difference. To escape was one thing, to remain alive another. If he died or was killed before returning to America, his victory would be only half won. If he escaped Russia and survived he would count it a complete victory and a real coup.

  A little mutton was left, but he needed another kill. Now, however, he had a bow and arrows.

  When morning came again, he arose and walked upon the mountain, and the ghosts of Red Cloud and Gall walked beside him. Perhaps the ghosts of even older Indians were there also, those who first followed this same trail to America, following the game out of Asia and into what we foolishly call the New World.

  New it was to the first Europeans, but an old, old world to others who had come before, and the trails they had followed were ancient trails, worn deep in the forest, deep in the tundra.

  Joe Mack, an officer and a gentleman, was once more the savage his ancestors had been, including that noble Scotsman whose ancestors had bloodied their claymores in the flesh of enemy clansmen.

  When the evening came he descended to a small stream and slew a reindeer that had come to drink. In the chill of evening he skinned out the beast, chose the cuts of meat, and roasted them over a fire. Other meat he cut into strips as his family had done and dried them over a small fire, while far into the cold night he scraped the staked-out hide and cut the sinews from the reindeer’s shoulders to make yet another, and better, bowstring.

  Over his small fire, sheltered by rocks and trees so that no glimmer escaped, he muttered the songs of his people, red and white, pausing only from time to listen.

  The wind was rising, the wind was cold. The stars were very bright, and in the north there was a hint of the northern lights high in the sky. The wind moaned in the stone pine thickets, rustling the leaves of the aspen just below. Old ghosts walked the night, peering as he did into the small dancing flame. The fire was scarcely enough to warm him, yet the flickering flames spoke to him in the poetry of his people.

  Somewhere out in the darkness something moved, something other than the wind, something huge and ominous. “Old Bear,” Joe Mack spoke aloud, “go back from where you came. I want your meat, your hide, and your fat, but not tonight.

  “Go back, Old Bear, and tell your cubs that tonight you saw a Sioux warrior and he let you live because he had killed enough for the day.”

  He awakened to a cold gray morning and stirred his dull ashes to life, rubbing his muscles to restore circulation. The wind that had moaned the long night through moaned still, and southward ran the streams, hurrying their waters away to a warmer land.

  “Be warm, my body,” Joe Mack said, “you will suffer worse than this!”

  He folded his reindeer hide and gathered his bow and arrows.

  The shoes on his feet were worn and torn by the rocks of the trail. “Tonight,” he told himself, “I will make moccasins.”

  Chapter 8

  *

  THAT EVENING, SPREADING out the reindeer hide, he drew a tracing of each foot. Allowing for the sides, he carefully cut out the selected sections. Bringing up the two sides, he used thin strips to stitch them together at the heel and then at the toe. After trying them on, he made holes for the laces of rawhide.

  A hide such as he had before him would easily make nin
e pair of moccasins. He made only four pair, knowing they would quickly wear out but needing the remainder of the hide for rawhide strings.

  For cold weather he would need much better footwear, but there would be time for that later. Moccasins such as these, made from poorly treated skins, would not last long, but for the present they must do. The hide he had used had not been well-prepared because of the lack of time and the necessity for travel. Made from a properly treated hide, the moccasins would last much longer.

  In the morning, the air was clear and cold. From where he sat his eyes could sweep a broad section of the country. It was forest land, broken by low, raw-backed mountains and wide stretches of marsh. Because of the marsh, travel would be channeled to some degree, so he must move with even greater care.

  Joe Mack had discarded his spear, keeping the bow and his quiver of arrows, as well as his sling and a small pouch of stones of a proper size. The knife he had stolen was a good one.

  Deliberately, he had kept to the high country, holding to the forest’s edge at timberline. Rarely did he find tracks of humans, yet as he moved he had grown increasingly aware that if he hoped to survive the winter he might have to work his way further south, as well as east. To the south lay the Amur region, where there would be more game but also a greater risk of discovery.

  It was midday before he moved, but first he buried the worn-out soles of his boots and their heels. Their discovery might indicate his presence.

  To the east was the Olekma, a wide river. Yakov had said crossing might be dangerous, but cross he must.

  According to the map Yakov had drawn in the clay the river, flowing at this point from south to north, lay directly before him. Somewhere further south the Olekma took a decided bend toward the west, gaining in width.

  Yakov puzzled him. Where was he going, armed as he was? Was there armed anti-Soviet resistance in Siberia? He doubted it. Or was he a thief, associated with a gang of thieves? There had been robberies in the Soviet Union, some of them quite dramatic, but beyond an occasional article printed in their papers and copied in American or European papers, or information gleaned from reports of trials, he knew nothing.

  He kept to the cover of the trees. The earth was covered with needles from the pines and was soft underfoot. When he came within sight of the Olekma, from a high point among the trees he studied what he could see of the stream.

  Almost at once he heard the distant mutter of an engine, and then a steam launch came within sight. It was headed upstream, and it carried at least a dozen soldiers.

  Searching for him? But how could they know where he was? Had he somehow failed to conceal his presence? Or was this a blanket search across a wide area? Even as he watched, the boat veered in toward the shore. He waited, then watched the soldiers disembark. At once they began making camp.

  It was warm in the sunshine, and Joe Mack sat watching the movements in the growing camp. A dozen soldiers—he counted them again—and an officer, perhaps a noncommissioned officer. He could see the sun glint from their weapons. If they were not hunting him, they were certainly hunting somebody or something.

  The steamboat, not over forty feet long, had tied up at the bank. It was too far away for him to make out details, but he had the impression that it was old, probably a boat long in use on the river. He should be moving on, but he hoped to get some idea of their direction. Yet once they were under cover of the forest, he would be unable to follow their progress.

  Rising and keeping under the trees, he started north along the face of the mountain. Below him and not far from where the soldiers had camped, two streams entered the Olekma, one from either side. The wind was cold and he was glad when he dipped deeper into the forest and away from it. He weaved among the trees, careful to break no branches and leave no obvious sign. His soft moccasins made almost no impression on the needles underfoot.

  What awaited him beyond the Olekma he did not know, yet slowly things forgotten were returning to mind—from books he had read long ago and Army orientation lectures.

  How to cross the Olekma?

  Finding a game trail, he followed it along the mountainside, pausing from time to time to listen. He heard nothing.

  When he had walked for what he believed was over two miles he paused to rest and to listen. As he waited, he chewed on some of the dried mutton from the mountain sheep.

  If that group of soldiers was hunting him there would be others. Somehow he had given away his presence here, or he had been seen.

  The river would be watched. Crossing the Olekma would not be as easy as crossing the Kalar.

  Would they try to take him alive? It did not matter. He would be better dead than a prisoner again. But what if he could cross the river in darkness? The nights were growing longer. Could he find some means, some way?

  He turned down the slope among the stone pines, taking a diagonal route along the mountainside. Ahead of him was a small stream. He paused before approaching to listen again. Then he went down to the water and followed the stream down toward the main river, pausing often to listen.

  He was one man alone in a hostile country, where no man was his friend. He must be prepared to kill or be killed.

  Above all, he must remain alert. Although the land before him was virtually uninhabited, there was always the chance of coming up to a hunter or prospector. If he remembered correctly, the Russians were building a new railroad across the country before him. Their Trans-Siberian line ran along the Amur, too close to China for comfort.

  Finding a rock under larch trees, closely screened from behind by thick brush, he seated himself. From the flat rock he could look down upon and across the Olekma to study its traffic. This high up, the stream was moving little. For a half hour he scanned the stream, as much as he could see of its shores, and the country around. Across the river there was a narrow belt of what seemed to be low-growing trees and brush, and beyond that the bare mountainside. He watched the shadows gather in the canyons opposite, and he thought he saw a way over the ridge that might offer concealment. Apparently there was a small river that headed up in the mountains opposite, flowing off to the northwest. If he could follow it up to its source near the rim he would be hidden until he had to cross the divide.

  Going back into the trees he lay down to rest, staring up into the dark green latticework of evergreen boughs. Slowly, his muscles relaxed and he rested easier. Tonight he must cross the Olekma, strike through the low trees to reach the streambed, and then turn southeast following the stream toward the rim.

  To think that only a few weeks ago he had driven in from Edwards Air Force Base to lunch with some friends in Beverly Hills, looking forward to his few days in Alaska. Now he was a fugitive, fleeing for his life in the interior of Siberia.

  He was six feet two inches, and when he had left for Alaska he had weighed one ninety. He smiled wryly up into the branches overhead. He doubted if he would weigh more than one seventy-five now, and he would probably be leaner than that before this ordeal was over.

  The nights were growing longer and colder. He would need warmer clothing, and he would need, most of all, a place to hole up and wait out the winter.

  But where? How?

  He slept then, and awakened to a faint stirring in the brush nearby. He sat up, reaching for his weapons.

  The stirring stopped. Something was there, watching him. He got to his feet and took up his bow and notched an arrow, waiting. Nothing happened.

  The day was gone. Now it would soon be dark. Ignoring whatever was in the brush, he started away, following the stream down toward the Olekma. An animal, he thought, perhaps a wolf prowling in search of prey. But not in search of him.

  The river lay suddenly before him, its dark waters glistening in the dim light. There were many willows along the shore and some larger trees he could not make out in the semidarkness. He looked across. He was a good swimmer but not a great one. He had never spent much time in the water. The mountain streams of his homeland had been narrow, rushing strea
ms, rarely deep. He looked around for a drift log but found none. There was driftwood everywhere, but most of it too light to be of use, except for a few gigantic old floaters that had buried themselves in the mud, their roots splayed out like immense black spiders.

  Then he found what he wanted. This time it was a plank, a three-by-twelve fully eight feet long washed down from some lumber mill or construction project. He pushed the plank into the water, sliding it over a log. When the end dropped off the log, it splashed.

  Instantly the quiet of the night was ripped apart by the vicious barking of a big dog, and not far away.

  A dwelling nearby? He had seen no signs of it. Yet suddenly, not fifty yards off, there was a rectangle of light as a door opened. A gruff voice demanded the dog be still.

  The man stood listening; then he admonished the dog in a softer tone and went back inside.

  Joe Mack waited until the dog walked back and lay down at the door. Carefully, then, he removed his vest and sweatshirt, wrapped his bow, arrows, and sling, and waded into the water, trying to make no sound.

  The water was icy cold, and the night was still. Despite his efforts, the water splashed and the dog came to its feet growling. He pushed off, and the dog rushed down to the water, barking furiously. The door slammed open and the man shouted angrily; then, flashlight in hand, he walked down to the water’s edge.

  He was downstream of Joe Mack, and when he flashed the light out upon the water it swept fifty feet away from him. One hand on the heavy plank, Joe Mack swam across the current, but inexorably he was moved down toward the spying, examining light.

  Joe Mack, his heart pounding, turned the plank downstream and tried to swim more strongly, going with the current but across the stream. The light swept above him, hesitated, and swung back, as if the man had glimpsed something to arouse his suspicion. Joe Mack let himself sink under the water but kept the plank and its small burden between himself and the light.

  The light’s rays reached them, but feebly. Slowly, Mack had been working his way across and downstream, carried by the current at a swifter pace than his swimming could have done. The flashlight touched his burden, but he knew he was by now so far out that the light would reveal nothing but some floating debris.