Last of the Breed (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  Khabarovsk? His cousin was there, doing a little business in furs but holding some government job as well. On the coast, though, was another cousin at a little place on Olga Bay. That might be safer, but was further away, almost twice as far.

  Hobbling on his crippled feet and using a cane to good effect, he started down the street to a place he knew. The street was empty. What would he say if a patrol came by?

  He heard a confused sound of voices behind him, and he hurriedly drew back into an opening between two buildings.

  A gang of hooligans, and if they found him they would certainly rob and beat him. They might even kill him. Such gangs had become common in Russia. Not long ago, one such gang had beaten an engineer to death to rob him of his blue jeans. Fortunately, these had not seen him. They went back in a straggling group, shouting obscenities at each other.

  When he reached the place he sought, several trucks were preparing to leave. Known to several of the drivers, he soon found a ride to Khabarovsk.

  The driver was talkative. Zhikarev would have preferred to sleep, but he knew there was no better source of information than these drivers, who were continually on the move. What they had not seen themselves they heard from other drivers.

  “How are things along the coast?”

  “Quiet. Fishing’s good, they say.” He jerked his head toward the rear. “Back there is trouble. A prisoner has escaped, and he must be a big one. They are asking all sorts of questions. I tell them nothing. Let them find out, if they can.

  “Khabarovsk is busy. Filled with soldiers. Builders, too. Always a lot of construction in Khab.”

  He droned on, talking of this and that, and Zhikarev listened, but with only half his attention. He simply wanted to rest.

  “Going on this time. Only stopping in Khab for fuel. Going on to the coast.”

  Zhikarev’s eyes opened. “To the seacoast? I have a cousin at Olga Bay. I have been thinking—”

  “Stay with me. I can take you right there.”

  “I would like that. I would like it very much.”

  “Cost you,” the driver glanced at him, wondering how much the little man was good for. Not much, probably. Might be better just to get him off into the mountains and—

  No, no. He had connections. If he did not turn up where he was going, the word would get out. Maybe to the KGB, but more likely to his own people. This one was into furs, and those fur dealers and trappers all worked together.

  Try something on one of them and you ended up with your truck in a ditch and your head bashed in. Not for him; he had too many dark and lonely roads to drive.

  “Last time I drove to the coast,” he said, “I saw a tiger. Big one, too. Right in the middle of the road. Looked as big as a cow. Jumped out of the way.

  “Beautiful over there, beyond the Sikhote Alins. Like to live there when I settle down. If I ever do.” He swung the heavy truck around a wide curve. There was no traffic on the road. “My girl says no. She likes cities. Wants to live in Khab. Excitement, she says.

  “Excitement, huh! She should drive this truck for a while! She’d see excitement!

  “Take last night. KGB all over the place. Getting ready to raid some place in the forest. Must have been fifty of them; soldiers, too!”

  Zhikarev listened, only half awake. It began to seem that he had decided to move just at the right time. There were furs in his shop, but he had left papers consigning them to Wulff. He chuckled. Let Wulff explain that.

  “Where d’you want to go, exactly?” the driver was asking.

  “Olga,” he said. “My cousin’s there.”

  “Oh, sure! Used to be a tiny place. When I was a youngster I was there once, only a customs house and a barracks there then. Now it’s become quite a place.

  “Seafood! Best anywhere around. Fresh caught, right from the bay or the Sea of Japan! Tetyukhe Bay is right along the coast there. Know it well. Plastun Bay, too. Everybody eats well around there! Fish, all kinds, ducks, geese, venison, whatever you want. That girl of mine, she likes the bright lights and the dancing! Me, I like to eat well! I like to fish, myself. Well, I’ll just have to talk her into it.”

  Zhikarev slept, uneasily, bouncing around on the rough road, listening to the drone of the driver’s voice. It was warm in the truck’s cab and the driver had covered the seat with sheepskin.

  Suddenly, a long time later, the truck pulled over into the shadows under some trees. A hand touched Zhikarev’s shoulder.

  “Go over there under the trees. It will be cold, but you wait there.”

  Zhikarev gathered himself and buttoned his heavy coat. He took up his cane and got clumsily down from the cab.

  “Pick you up on my way out from Khab.” The driver hesitated and then said, “I would stay hidden was I you. The word’s out to pick up a man with crippled feet. Might be using a cane.”

  The truck rolled away, pushing an avenue of light before it. How long had he ridden? For days and nights, it seemed.

  So they were looking for him? Well, he had expected it. This driver seemed a decent sort. If he could only get to the coast. Nobody knew about his cousin, or he did not believe they did. He could stay there until things quieted down, and then back to the border and after that, Hong Kong.

  It was cold, bitterly cold! Using his cane, he hobbled across the road and into the trees.

  TWENTY-TWO

  PESHKOV MET THEM in Aldan. Colonel Zamatev took an instant dislike to the man, but that was the trouble with this business. You encountered many such, and you had to handle them with gloves for they might know something. Yet they were liars as well as traitors, and one had to be careful. Always, there was the chance of an ambush such as had occurred a few months ago, when several KGB officers were led into a trap and murdered. There was so much crime these days. It was never in the newspapers unless there was a trial and the judgment reported.

  Peshkov would lead them to the village. Stegman glared at him from cold blue eyes. “If anything goes wrong,” he said, “if there is trouble, I will kill you first.”

  Peshkov swallowed. “There will be no trouble. These people will not fight. Most of them are old people or children.”

  * * *

  —

  HOURS LATER THEY descended on the village. They struck swiftly and from all sides. And they found nothing.

  At one shack, there was an old man sitting in the sun, with several grandchildren playing nearby. Inside the crude hut was an old woman with a samovar, making tea.

  Every other house was empty.

  “I tell you,” Peshkov said desperately, “they were here! The man Stephan Baronas lived there, with his daughter! Day after day I have seen them here!”

  Alekhin looked around the cabin. He touched the ashes of the fire with his fingers. “Cold,” he said. He knew he could find something, and later he would look. He did not like Peshkov and enjoyed seeing the man sweat.

  “They are gone,” Peshkov said. “I cannot understand it.” He was bewildered. “Where would they go? How would they go?”

  “You have led us up a blind alley,” Zamatev said coldly. He walked across to the old man sitting in the sun. “Grandfather”—he pointed—“where are the people who lived in that house?”

  The old man’s eyes were vague. His voice trembled with age. “Salischev? He has gone. I do not…I do not remember when. Long ago, I think. Sometimes campers come.” He looked up, suddenly angry. “Men come and stay; they kill game; they take food from us. They stay in that place or”—he waved a hand—“in one of these. They steal. Evil men—”

  “We are looking for Stephan Baronas and his daughter, or the man Borowsky.”

  The old man shook his head. “They never say their names. They come and they go. They are strong young men and should be in the army or working on BAM. BAM? Is that the railroad? We had a railroad when I was
a boy. It was down by the Amur.” He shook his head. “I never liked it. Too close to China! Those yellow bastards, one cannot trust them! I wouldn’t trust them!”

  “Baronas,” Zamatev said patiently. “We were told he lived in that cabin.”

  “We are alone. Alone! I do not want to be alone! I want to talk! And there are only those strangers. They are hooligans, all of them! Hooligans!”

  “Did you know Stephan Baronas?” Zamatev was patient.

  “They come and they go. Sometimes they speak, sometimes they do not.” He puckered his brow and squinted. “Baronas? Is that a Russian name? I think not.”

  Zamatev turned angrily. “Peshkov? Do you know this man? Who is he?”

  Peshkov was sweating. “I do not know him. He is here. He has always been here. There’s been no reason—”

  “You brought me here to find the American. You spoke of this man Baronas. There is no such man here or the daughter. You have lied to us.”

  “No! No, please! I have not lied! They were here. There were many of them, but they are gone!”

  “That place,” Zamatev pointed, “has not been lived in, probably, for months!”

  Alekhin sat on a fallen log and watched. Of course it had been lived in, but they had not asked him. It had been lived in not long since, and only a clumsy effort made to conceal the fact. He did not care about all this. It was a waste of time. Soon he would be on his way, and he would find this American. He knew where he was going now and knew the farther he went the easier he would be to catch. There was no hurry. He would get him in his own good time. Meanwhile this crazy old man was making a fool of them. And if they tortured him they would get no more from him.

  Alekhin was contemptuous of Peshkov, and he was pleased to see him embarrassed.

  Obviously the people here had scattered and might return again when things quieted down. What interested him was where the American had lived, certainly not here.

  He got up and walked across the small clearing. If he had visited the Baronas family, then he would have left from there. He stood in front of that shelter and looked around. After a bit he walked past the corner of the place and looked up through the trees.

  Gathering fuel, they had broken the dead branches from the lower part of the aspen trunks. They had picked up whatever had fallen to the ground, too.

  There were old tracks under the trees. Some big square heels he recognized as tracks made by Peshkov. Smaller, older tracks evidently left by the woman. He moved up through the trees. Peshkov’s tracks were days old but had not been disturbed. Nothing had been up here since.

  Alekhin stopped and studied the ground. Faint smears over Peshkov’s tracks here. He studied them thoughtfully, then went on. Peshkov had stopped, flatfooted, his two big feet side by side, the tracks blurred a little as though he had moved. Something had stopped him right about here, stopped him abruptly. There were smudges behind him. He walked about, came back to the tracks, and studied them some more. Somebody had slipped up behind Peshkov and stopped him. A knife in his back, or a gun. The American probably had no gun and did not even want one. He could have taken the AK-47 from the soldier he had killed at the helicopter, but he had left it.

  No ammunition in it, of course, but that was not it. The American wanted to kill silently. A gun was noisy. It attracted too much attention.

  Why had he not killed Peshkov? He was weak, this American. He should have killed him and just carried the body off and dumped it. With a man like Peshkov, who would care?

  He worked his way up through the trees. The American was wearing something soft on his feet. What they called moccasins. His shoes had worn out, and he had used the skin of an animal to make shoes.

  It was not an easy trail to follow and it was many days old, but nobody had been this way before. He lost the trail, found it again, and then found the cave.

  A nice place. Oh, a very nice place! Spots of grease from cooking left on the rock, the ashes of his fires. Very small fires of dry wood. Very little smoke, not much light from the fire. Yet this place would have been warm.

  Alekhin went outside and stood looking around. He could hear the mutter of voices from what they were calling the village. The American would have wanted a way out, a way to leave here quickly if necessary.

  Alekhin took his time. He was learning something about this man he was following. Men and animals form habits. They have certain ways of doing things, and once you have visited a camp or two you always know how that man will camp again. You will know what he looks for, how he builds his fires. And this one was cautious.

  Alekhin was pleased with the American. The man used his head. Now what would the next step be? He would have wanted an escape route. He would have wanted a second camp and perhaps a third. If the American had been here long, he would have prepared for escape.

  When he came upon the opening in the trees, the hair prickled on the back of his neck. Ah? So! He found a faint smudge here, a piece of a track there, and he turned to look back.

  Shrewd! The American had chosen a way of escape he knew. It was not straight away; it curved back on itself, but always gave a smooth way to go. He had used this way at night; that was why there were any tracks at all.

  Slowly Alekhin was building a store of knowledge about the American. If he had planned such an escape route once, he would do so again. It would be something to remember.

  Alekhin turned and walked back to the village. The soldiers were assembling.

  Zamatev was irritable. He looked up angrily. “Where have you been?”

  “I look about. He was here. I must know what he did here.”

  “That old fool knows nothing! Peshkov has lied, I think, hoping for a reward.”

  “He did not lie. He is a fool and a traitor, but he did not lie.”

  “The American was here?”

  “He was.” He jerked his head. “I found his place. It is a good place.” As Zamatev started, Alekhin said, “There is nothing there.”

  Zamatev stopped. “You looked around?”

  “He wears moccasins now. His boots wore out, so he wears moccasins.”

  “Moccasins? Where could he get them? We must find—”

  “He made them,” Alekhin interrupted. “He is an Indian. Indians can make soft shoes. He can make clothes to wear. He can live off the country.”

  “Can you track him?”

  “Of course. No need to track from here. I will go to where the helicopter fell. Track him from there.”

  Together they walked back, passing the soldiers, who fell in behind them. One, a noncommissioned officer, saluted. “Shall we burn the places, sir?”

  “Let them be,” Zamatev said. “They will come back. Then we will get them.”

  When they parted, Alekhin took a helicopter and four men to the site of the crash. “Stay behind me,” he told them, “and stay awake. Keep your eyes open. Maybe we see him.”

  “You don’t think he’s still around?”

  Alekhin stared at the soldier from his heavy-lidded eyes until the soldier began to sweat and back up. “We do not know what he is doing. We do not guess. This man is dangerous.” He stared at them. “One man died here, and two died up there. He is but one man, but three are dead and a helicopter smashed and burned.”

  He looked at them with contempt. “Keep your eyes open or you will be dead, too.”

  He cast about for tracks. The Indian was a tall man with a fairly long stride. If you found one track, you looked the approximate length of that stride for another track. This American did not always choose the easy way. He often stepped on stones. He did not have to try to be careful. He was always careful in the woods. It was his nature.

  By nightfall he had learned more about the American’s methods of travel.

  He did not stop to hunt, so he had a store of food. He had smoked and dried meat ba
ck there. Alekhin had not found the rack, but he had found holes where it had been set into the earth. He was carrying a pack. Alekhin could tell that from the increased depth of the tracks since leaving the cave. It was very slight, but it was there.

  At the sight of the attack where Joe Mack had killed the soldier, Alekhin had correctly deduced the reason. There was no cover for a man on the ground. When the soldier turned around, he would have been seen.

  That night around their fire, Alekhin went over every move in his mind. To follow a trail one had to decide what it was the pursued wanted to do.

  To escape? Of course, but to what? To where? It was unlikely the American had friends, so his one object would be to get away, to get out of Siberia, to return to his home. Alekhin had never believed in the border of China. This man was an Indian. He would follow the old migration route, the way the ancient hunters had gone when they followed game into America.

  Of course, they had not known they were going to America or even from one continent to another. They had simply gone hunting and followed the game to where they could kill them. And they had continued to follow the game.

  The shortest way across the water was at the Bering Strait. He would choose that way. Zamatev had never believed that, but then Zamatev was a city man, a man of the streets and towns.

  The American was an Indian. He would go where the game was because that was how he must live. He dared not go to the towns because he did not know the language.

  Zamatev could do it his way. Alekhin had no interest in towns.

  * * *

  —

  ZAMATEV DREW THE cork from the bottle and filled two glasses. “I came as quickly as possible,” he said.

  “I am sorry. When I sent word, I thought they would be there. When we located the village, I did not believe it would be empty.”

  “Somebody talked,” Zamatev surmised.

  She lifted her glass. “Perhaps. More likely they just got in a panic and fled. I think the American had already gone.”