The Trace of the Wolf

by Siegfried Wittwer

  "You must pull the arrow to the corner of your mouth and hook your thumb behind your chin," Mischka explained to him again and again. "Then you have a fixed point of reference. Here at the arch I have attached a visor. It's got three markers. The upper is for a range of thirty yards, the second for fifty and the third for seventy-five yards. When the end of the arrow is at the corner of your mouth and you can see the animal in the upper visor at a distance of thirty yards, slowly pull your shoulder blades together until the tendon automatically slides from your fingertips, all right?"

  Kolja shook his head. "The bow has too much traction for me. That's at least sixty pounds to hold."

  "Probably much more," laughed Mischka, "otherwise the arrow would not penetrate an elk."

  "And then I'm supposed to keep the bow still! My fingertips are already all broken. Look, also my left forearm is blue beaten by the string, although I wear a leather jacket! No, Mischka, it’s not for me!" He gave the bow back to his comrade and reached for the spear again. "But I think your spear slingshot is just great! I'm gonna build myself a weapon like that. No reindeer can escape me with this."

  "They're half tame too," Mischka teased. "You can sneak up on them as far as ten yards. – Won't you try again?"

  He held out the bow to Kolja, but he shook his head. "No, no. I've had it with this. You take the bow. I use spear and spear thrower. Then we can complement each other well."

  They were successful hunters. Ivan was very pleased with their prey. With the help of Pawlik and Trofim, he smoked and dried the meat and stored it in a small earth tunnel which they had driven into the permafrost and locked with a plank door.

  When the first winter storms hit the taiga, they had enough supplies to survive the next few months. Should the weather allow it, Mischka wanted to go out every now and then to replenish the supplies.

  The search for gold, on the other hand, was meagre this autumn. Nevertheless, each of the men had accumulated a modest fortune in the two years they had spent here. It was enough to be able to found a new existence if they settled somewhere one day. The chances were not bad, for Siberia was great, and many ex-convicts had settled here after serving their sentence. They would not stand out among them as long as they were not searched for in the profile.

  The winter months were long and cold. Although they heated strongly, the frost came through every crack. Only when the temperature was bearable did the men go into the mine workings to dig for gold. They first had to defrost the ground with fire before they could work it with pickaxes and shovels. It was a laborious job, and Mischka did not envy the men in any way. He preferred to roam the forest and go hunting.

  In the meantime, the men played cards, talked or dozed on their beds to shorten the time until spring. Everyone dreamed of a little luck and happiness in the future. Mischka meanwhile knew their hopes and wishes and wondered whether they would ever come true. The conversations with Proschin did not go out of his head. Was the life of the men meaningless if their dreams didn't come true? Would they one day die with a curse on their lips, or was a peaceful end meant for them?

  ◆◆◆

  It was one of those ice-cold January days when saliva seems to freeze in your mouth. Even Mischka didn't go out to hunt at these temperatures. Basically, they had enough meat supplies, too. So, after breakfast he lay back on his bed and watched his comrades. Boris, Pawlik and Kolja played cards as usual, Andrej cleaned his carbine, Ivan worked at the kitchen table and Trofim, the Tungus, carved a branch. Already in the early morning Iwan and Trofim started to argue. As always, it were trifles. Trofim had taken a slice of black bread when Iwan stopped peeling potatoes and verbally abused him: "Typical, you old greedy bastard! Two hours ago we had breakfast, and again you're munching! You're never gonna get fed up, are you? If you go on like this, we'll have to scrape lichens from the trees so we don't starve."

  "You've got it all wrong, Ivan," the man said.

  "What, I got it wrong?" the chef snapped. "All I see is this. You're always eating."

  "That's exactly what I mean," Trofim explained. "I eat more often, but less, at least less than you, as anyone can see." With his sharp eyes, he watched the lifebelt that was swelling out of Iwan's trousers.

  "What does everyone see here?" he wanted to know. Then he knocked on his stomach and went on: "They're all just muscles!"

  "Muscles? Don't make me laugh. You don't look so good."

  "No, my dear! You're blind as a mole."

  "I know what I see," Trofim replied, "and everyone here sees it the same way."

  "Can't be. Even when you look out the window, you're cross-eyed with your Tungus gooks. How are you going to make statements about my stomach?"

  "I'm not cross-eyed, chubby. I see everything clear and unclouded!"

  "If anyone can see everything clearly and unclouded here, it’s me!" the chef got excited.

  The engineer looked up. "You don't say so! You believe that everything is exactly as you perceive it with your eyes, do you. But the world may be very different from what you can imagine or see."

  The men stopped talking. In the monotony of their life and the recurring daily rituals, every turn of conversation was a welcome change.

  Ivan put the kitchen knife aside and replied, "So, what's the world really going to be like, you wise guy?"

  "No one can say what it’s really like. We only live on assumptions. An example: In the past, we were taught in school that our universe was infinite and open. This assumption has now proved to be wrong."

  "That's not the only thing dialectical materialism taught, and it’s outdated now," Mischka threw in and rose from the bed.

  The engineer nodded. "Yes, that's right. So, we now know that the room is finally closed and self-contained."

  "Say," Ivan interrupted him, "if space is over somewhere, what comes next?"

  "Nothing," Andrej returned.

  "And where does one get if one could fly through the nothingness for an infinitely long time?" Iwan wanted to know.

  "Nowhere."

  "I just can't imagine that! You fly and fly and you get nowhere, always nothing?"

  "Well," Mischka supported the engineer, "it’s like the eternity of God. You keep going back in time, and he's always there. He has no beginning, just as the void in the universe has no end. That's how Proschin the Hermit explained it to me. We have often discussed such questions."

  "Oh, it’s all just pious drivel," Ivan said dismissively. "That doesn't help me either!"

  Mischka patted him on the shoulder soothingly. "But they're interesting mind games. Proschin caused me lots of bellyaches with his thoughts. When I said to him, 'How can one believe in a God in our enlightened time?' do you know what he answered?”

  "What?" Kolja was interested to hear.

  "’Can you prove that there is no God?’ Well, there I was, not knowing the answer."

  "But if God existed, he could not allow all this injustice and suffering," Ivan interjected.

  "That's what I said at first, but the old man picked me to pieces. God will not cease to exist if he does not act as we tell him to! That was an argument, of course. And then Proschin said that neither of us could prove anything, we have to believe: He believes that God exists. I don't think he exists. – The question is, what do we both have out of our faith? I didn't answer that question. What's there to say?" Mischka shrugged his shoulders. "Actually, I have no use out of it that I don't care about God."

  "Well, I think there's a good roast for lunch today, and I have a lot of that faith," grinned Iwan and went back to work.

  ◆◆◆

  Two months later, the temperature rose to fifteen degrees Celsius below zero. In the late morning the sun was already over the horizon again. It still seemed weak and colorless, but the sky was bright blue. Only a handful of fleecy clouds hung like cotton balls on the horizon. Mischka wanted to go hunting. After the long weeks of darkness and cold he felt like a prisoner in the hut and longed for the freedom of the wilderness.
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  Since there was still the possibility of a weather change, he carefully chose his equipment. Anyway, he'd stay away for a few days.

  "So long, people," he shouted to his comrades, "and get along. I'll be back in four days."

  Then he put on his snowshoes and ran into the forest. Andrej and Ivan stood in front of the hut and waved after him.

  "And bring me a fat roast venison," Mischka heard calling the cook.

  The air seemed to him after the great cold almost lukewarm and spring like. Nevertheless, the winter was not yet over. Frost and snowstorms could return unexpectedly to smother all life that had rashly ventured out.

  The stuffy air in the hut and the fume of the always smoking oven had made Mischka's breathing difficult and his head fogged. He loved the crunch of the snow under his feet, the glittering ice crystals on the trees and the white splendor of the snow-covered landscape.

  He was on the way for about twenty minutes when he heard the hard beating of rotor blades. Instinctively, he withdrew under the protective branches of a spruce. A helicopter appeared over a hilltop in the south, took a turn and set course for the log cabin.

  Damn it, Mischka thought they'd tracked me down again? He pulled binoculars out of his pocket and pointed them at the helicopter. The helicopter disappeared behind a group of trees. Then shots whipped through the air, tore up the silence of the winter landscape, destroyed the magic of untouched nature.

  Mischka clenched his fists. That was the militia! When the weather allowed it, they hunted illegal gold seekers who felt too safe in winter. They flew to the abandoned state mines to track down the gold prospectors. Often there were battles because the men did not always let themselves be captured without will. The judgments were harsh, and some preferred to take the risk of losing their lives rather than their freedom.

  Obviously, his comrades were ready to fight. Mischka hoped they could escape the militia. He feverishly considered how he should behave. The militia must have seen his tracks in the snow. The question now was whether they would chase him with the helicopter or let him go? Did he even have a chance to escape them?

  He was looking at the site. Then he saw an opportunity, a tiny chance. As fast as he could, Mischka ran towards the incision of a ridge that ended at a rock edge. In doing so, he tried to leave a clear trace.

  Then he went back in his tracks and climbed up a wooded slope that led to the edge of the rock. At the top, he sawed off a medium-sized birch trunk and tied his leather lasso to it. Breathing heavily, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. He sawed off two more logs and tied them crosswise to the other end of the lassos. A Bola for rotor blades, Mischka thought grimly.

  Everything depended on his pursuers flying close enough to the edge of the rock in low flight. If they come from above, they could chase him like a rabbit through the open forest. Nevertheless, he would defend himself by all means.

  He heard the helicopter get on. Even with the naked eye Mischka could see that it was flying in his direction just above the ground. No doubt, they were following his trail!

  Mischka retreated into a thicket. The will to fight made his adrenaline level rise. His blood pressure was elevated and his muscles began to tremble. He felt light as if he was hovering above the ground.

  The helicopter was following his trail. Mischka hoped that he would fly close enough to the edge of the rock. This was the only way he could throw the birch trunks into the rotor blades. If not, he was in a bad way!

  His pursuers were only five hundred yards away when the helicopter unexpectedly turned to the right and disappeared behind a hilltop. Mischka straightened up in amazement. Why had they given up the pursuit? Were they trying to trick him? Anything come up? He listened with alert senses.

  A slight humming sounded from the other side of the hilltop. They came from behind to surprise him, to thwart his plans! Mischka's thoughts were racing. Should he compete with a spear-thrower and bow against a helicopter? In summer, he could have tricked his pursuers and escaped them. But the snow even told a child which direction he had taken.

  Suddenly shots barked up, mixed with the hard hitting of the rotor blades. They didn't get far from the other side of the mountain.

  Now Mischka understood. One of the gold seekers had escaped from the hut and fled in his footsteps in order not to sink so deeply into the snow. Then he had fought his way sideways into the woods. However, his plan had not worked out. The helicopter hadn't been tracking Mischkas, it had been tracking him.

  The militia must now have put him up and taken him under fire. Should he hurry to help him or get away? Was he even able to help him? Wouldn't the militia also follow his trail if they'd killed his comrade? What was he supposed to do? Mischka was sweating despite the cold.

  He took his weapons and hurried through the forest to the spot where he heard the shots and engine noises. Suddenly he stepped out of the forest on a slope. The helicopter was hovering right in front of him. Mischka withdrew into the forest in a flash. Hunched up behind a spruce trunk, he watched the terrain. Maybe he could walk back in his comrade's tracks and make a circle. The pursuers could not determine his whereabouts later.

  Then he saw Andrej. The engineer crawled across the ground on all fours, laboriously, at the end of his strength. The snow around him turned red. Mischka almost stopped his heart. Why Andrej? Why a man who was thoughtful, quiet and clever. How could they dare to shoot down such a valuable human as a mangy dog?

  Mischka felt the blood roaring in his ears. He stood up halfway. His fist clasped the hunting bow so tightly that his fingers hurt. The helicopter turned. A man in a fur hat appeared in the open door. He pointed his rifle at Andrej, as if to give him the mercy shot.

  "No!" Mischka cried out and jumped up.

  The man in the helicopter turned his head and looked at him in astonishment. Like in a trance Mischka raised the bow, put on an arrow, stretched the string until it touched his ear, aimed briefly and let the arrow fly. The man in the helicopter screamed and grabbed his shoulder. His rifle whirled to the ground.

  Mischka shot a second arrow. It flew through the open door and pierced the pilot's arm. The helicopter tilted sideways and chased away across the forest. His engine howled wildly. The rotor blades ate through the treetops like the knives of a giant lawn mower. Branches and twigs swirled through the air. Then it crashed to the ground between spruces and larches. The engine died. A column of smoke rose to the sky and filled the air with the smell of fire. Then an explosion tore the silence apart. A ball of fire rose above the trees and illuminated the valley in ghostly light, as if the Day of Judgment had dawned.

  From Mischka's throat came a scream, wild, full of certainty of victory and superiority. He felt like a prehistoric Tungus who, with his primitive weapons, killed the fearsome tiger of the Siberian taiga. The enemy was defeated, punished, destroyed. He wouldn't be able to hurt him anymore, him and his comrades.

  Mischka stormed down the slope and knelt down next to the engineer.

  "Andrej," he shouted. "It's me, Mischka. Don't be afraid. The chopper exploded. The men are dead."

  The engineer moaned quietly and tried to turn around. He looked at Mischka with sad eyes.

  "How are you, Andrej?"

  "I think I'm coming to the end," Andrej whispered quietly. "My legs are already cold and numb."

  Mischka felt a lump blocking his voice. His eyes filled with tears. "Don't, Andrej. You mustn't die," he said hoarse. Carefully he opened his comrade's clothes. "Let me look at your wound."

  There was a hole in Andrej's abdomen and back. It was a straight shot through. He'd probably lost a lot of blood. The wounds had to be dressed immediately. Mischka picked out clean clothes from his backpack, pressed them onto the wounds and tied them with leather strips.

  "I'll take you to safety, Andrej. You're gonna be okay. I promise you that."

  "Thank you, Mischka. But you can't promise anything, just hope."

  "It's all right, I hope so. But tell me, Andrej, what hap
pened to the others? How are Ivan and his comrades?"

  "They captured them," the engineer replied gasping. "And two men guard them ... I escaped through the window when they stormed the cabin."

  "Then I must go back and help them."

  "Don't be reckless, Mischka. You can't do anything about them. They're specialists."

  "Don't be so sure, Andrej. With your help, I have a chance. You'll see."

  Amazed, the engineer looked at him. "With my help?"

  "I'll explain my plan to you later. Now I'm going to build a sledge so I can transport you. I've already sawed off three birch logs. I'm going away for a moment to get them. It'll only take ten minutes."

  While Andrej sank back into the snow exhausted, Mischka stomped up the mountain to fetch the lasso and the tree trunks. He had to help his comrades, even if it put himself in danger. They'd do the same.

  The mood of the men was at zero. The militia had totally surprised them. There had been no resistance at all to think of. Only Andrej had been escaping through the window with one leap when the soldiers stormed the log cabin. They had shot at him like crazy. But the engineer had zigzagged into the woods and disappeared behind the trees.

  After the soldiers had tied them up, the helicopter had set off to pursue Andrej. Two men were left behind and now guarded them with their Kalashnikovs.

  Trofim cursed quietly.

  "Shut up!" one of the guards shouted at him and hit him in the face with the back of his hand.

  Trofim crashed against the wall of the hut and fell from his stool. Although his face was burning and his shoulder hurt from the fall, he suppressed his anger. Rebellion was no use anyway. The man would just hit him even harder without being able to fight back. So, it wasn't worth it. He made an indifferent face until his guard turned away from him and walked to the window. He was a stocky, hulking guy with a blood-red scar over his left eye.