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

by Louis L'Amour

  For two days he stayed in the snow cave, improving his snowshoes and simply waiting. The search continued, and from time to time he heard planes and once a helicopter, flying very low over the treetops. There had been much snow, and whatever tracks he had made had long since been covered. On the third evening he came out of his cave, collapsed it, and started off through the woods with a swinging stride, wearing his snowshoes.

  Avoiding trails, he kept to the mountainsides, alert for any sound, any search parties. The temperature had fallen, and it was piercingly cold. His body had gradually grown somewhat accustomed to it, although he was careful not to work up a sweat and to avoid falls.

  He covered something over twenty miles, as nearly as he could judge, and came to another surfaced road. No tire tracks broke the surface of the snow. For a moment he hesitated. To cross the road meant leaving a trail and the snow was not falling so steadily, yet there was no other way. He crossed the road and went up into the trees.

  Despite being well covered, with only slits for his eyes, his face was nevertheless stiff with cold. It had been long since he had been warm, and he was running low on food. He would have to make a kill soon. Meat, and especially fat, was essential.

  So far, he had been traveling through thick forest and more often than not at night, yet he had made goggles of bark with narrow slits for vision. These he could tie on to prevent the glare that causes snow blindness.

  He was plodding into the forest when he turned to look back. He had heard no sound, but a car had stopped and a man had gotten out to study the tracks. The man looked up and looked right at him. Joe Mack stood within the very edge of the woods, but apparently he was visible, for the man lunged for his car. His intentions were obvious, and Joe Mack whipped an arrow from his quiver. As the man turned, he notched his arrow and let fly. The man’s rifle was coming up when the arrow hit him.

  He staggered, grasping at his throat, the rifle discharging as it fell into the snow. Joe Mack ran closer and then stopped and bent his bow a second time, for the man was struggling to sit up. The distance was less than twenty yards now, and the arrow went true.

  Quickly, he withdrew his arrows, losing the head from one of them but returning the other to his quiver. Inside, the car was warm. There was a pack and, on the seat, a pistol in a holster. There were cartridges also. These he gathered up. There was an emergency kit of food, and that he took. Suddenly, he stopped.

  Stooping, he picked up the dead man and loaded him into the car. Then he put the rifle in the car, too. Its motor was still running. Taking off his snowshoes, he got in behind the wheel and drove off. Somewhere ahead, there would be a village.

  He drove steadily. No other cars. The hour was late, and thinking of that, he turned to the dead man beside him and then stopped the car. It needed only a minute to take the wristwatch from the dead man’s wrist and the money, little though it was, from his pocket. He would leave the car and the dead man, and perhaps they would believe he had been robbed by hooligans.

  The village, when he came to it, after driving nearly thirty miles, was a mere cluster of houses and sheds. It was obviously some sort of a way station, but there was no power line here. Driving the car into the shadows of a shed, he got out of the car and took his snowshoes, the food supply, and his pack. Then he walked away into the night and the swirling snow.

  Tomorrow they would find the car. Hopefully, they would not at once think of him. If there were an autopsy, something he doubted, they would find his arrowhead. Leaving the road, he struck off toward the northwest and into the forest.

  All was white and still; snowflakes fell steadily and might cover any trail he left. In any event, it had to be chanced. He headed off into the night, moving at a steady pace.

  He now had enough food for a day or two, and he had a pistol. He would use it only in dire necessity. The rifle he had not wanted, as the report of a gun might attract undue attention, and he could hunt as well with his bow and arrows.

  An hour after daylight he built a snow cave and crawled into it. Almost at once he was asleep.

  The man he had killed had known who he was. Furthermore, he had not hesitated to shoot. A bullet could have disabled or killed him. What worried him was that the man had not hesitated, which implied that he knew who he was and was himself probably involved in the chase.

  They were closing in. That was the only way to understand what had happened. They were closing in, and they knew he was in the vicinity. The answer to that was to get out of it as fast as possible.

  The food he had taken from the car lasted three days, and at the end of that time he killed a deer. He was in the taiga now, and had seen no sign of human life since abandoning the car. He made camp in a snow cave and broiled a venison steak. As he was now moving away from the coast, his shelters in snow caves would be coming to an end. The snow was not so deep further inland.

  As evening came, safely in his snow cave, he built a small fire with a reflector to push heat back into the cave, and he pondered.

  * * *

  —

  ALEKHIN, BEING DRIVEN in another black Volga, came to Topka late on the same afternoon. Peter Petrovich was awaiting him at the office of the collective.

  “I have no idea how long it had been there,” he said. “It has been bitter cold, and nobody was stirring around except from the house to the barn. Anyway, the man had been dead for some time.”

  They walked across to the car. There was no blood on the car seat, and the body was on the passenger’s side of the car. His rifle had been fired, but there was no cartridge case in the car. The emergency food his men carried was gone, and so were his pistol, his wristwatch, and his money.

  “Thieves,” Peter Petrovich said. “They will steal anything they can get their hands on.”

  Alekhin opened the dead man’s clothes to look at the wound. It was round and not too large. It could have been made by a bullet, but something was warning him it had not.

  On a table in the house he took off the dead man’s coat and shirt. There was a protuberance on the dead man’s back. Through a slit made by his knife, Alekhin saw an arrowhead.

  Peter Petrovich was astonished. “An arrow! It cannot be! We have no savages here!”

  “You have one. You have the American.”

  “The American? You are laughing at me. How could he exist out in the taiga? It is cold, bitter, bitter cold!”

  “He exists. He has been here.”

  Alekhin thought about it, turning it over in his mind. Evidently, the dead man had seen Makatozi, but had missed his shot.

  This had been a good man, one of his best. He had been driving to the coast, heading for Aldoma to interview a man they had taken who might know something.

  The man’s pistol was gone and the ammunition for it, yet the rifle had been left.

  “You mean this American has been here? You believe he did this?”

  Alekhin ignored him. The American had a bow and arrow and did not need or want the rifle. He had killed this man with an arrow, then had bundled him into the car and driven him here. It was true, this road went nowhere except to swing in one great circle or to drive back to Nel’kan. And the American was going north again.

  Why had he gone east at all? To meet someone? To get into warmer weather for a few weeks? Had he wished to drive to the coast, he could easily have done so, and the chances were he could have driven on into Nel’kan without anyone the wiser.

  Kurun-Uryakh? There was a good flying field there, a good base for aircraft. The American was east of the Maya River and living in the forest. The food he had taken would not last long, so he would have to kill for meat.

  “We will get him,” Alekhin said quietly. “We will get him now.”

  Suvarov! That fool! Sitting there with all his soldiers, and the American had slipped around them and left them sitting. Alekhin chuckled. Suvarov
had failed, but he would get him. He got into the car. “Drive me to the helicopter,” he said.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Peter asked.

  “Stay out of the way,” Alekhin replied brusquely. “We do not need you.”

  The helicopter would fly him to Kurun-Uryakh. There was a gold mine there, he remembered, and they should have communication facilities.

  When the helicopter was aloft, Peter Petrovich drove back to Topka. He was a quiet, studious young man who worked quietly at his job and tried to make no waves. He was an able administrator, often impatient with the restraints the bureaucracy placed upon him, but a loyal Soviet citizen. He had read much of America and had often listened to the Voice of America and the BBC, preferring the latter. He did not approve of America. Their government was too confused, too weak. As a Russian he had never known anything but a strong central government. Nor had his parents, grandparents or great-grandparents. Before Lenin and Stalin, there had been the Tsars.

  He owned two pairs of blue jeans from America, a few rock and roll records, and even some American books translated into Russian.

  He had read everything he could find written by Jack London, and because of that he had strong sympathy for that lone American out there in the taiga. If he had seen him, he would have reported it promptly, but nonetheless, he sympathized with him. Someone had said the man was a Sioux Indian, and Peter Petrovich had read an account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

  They said the Indian had been a flyer, and he could not imagine that. It seemed impossible. Yet there were Yakut flyers, and one of his favorite writers was a Yakut. He himself was from Kiev. He had volunteered to come to Siberia because the pay was so much greater and the chances for advancement were better.

  He drove back to his building and put the car in the garage. He was thinking of a mug of tea with maybe a touch of vodka to take away the chill.

  He opened his door and stepped in, closing the door carefully behind him. Now, to relax! To have his tea, the drop of vodka, and to read!

  He turned away from the door and looked into the muzzle of a pistol.

  The man holding the gun was the American. He was the Indian. And the gun was very steady; the gray, icy eyes held no mercy.

  “First,” the American said, “we will eat.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  PETER PETROVICH WAS surprised, not only by the American’s presence but by his reaction to it. He was not afraid. He was not even nervous.

  “I am hungry, too,” he spoke in English. “You can put down that gun.”

  “Thank you, but we have an affinity for one another, this gun and I. Be careful, because I do not want to kill you.”

  “You had less compassion for the man in the car.”

  “He tried to shoot at me, leaving me small choice. One of us had to die, and I was reluctant, as you can imagine.”

  “You can’t get away, you know. They are following you. Alekhin himself is here.”

  “Here?”

  “He was here. He’s flown north now, as he judged you would be going that way. He flew to Kurun-Uryakh, on the Maya.”

  Peter was heating up some stew. It smelled very good.

  “Do you prefer tea or coffee?”

  “Either is all right. I’ve been drinking tea here in your country. I prefer coffee.”

  “So do I.” Peter glanced at him. “They tell me you are an Indian?”

  “A Sioux. The term Indian is too indefinite. It is like saying European.”

  “But you have gray eyes?”

  “One grandfather was a Scot. But it is not unusual. Crazy Horse had gray eyes and sandy hair.”

  It was warm in the room. The smells of stew and coffee and the warmth were lulling him into comfort. Deliberately, he stood up. “Are you likely to have visitors?”

  “No. They know that I read much at night. Unless someone comes looking for you.”

  “If they do, please stay out of it. I would not want to kill a good cook.”

  Peter smiled. “I am not a hero. When you are gone I shall report it at once. You understand that?”

  “Of course.” He tucked the pistol behind his belt. “They were all ready for me up north, so I circled around. I doubted they would expect me to come back here.”

  They talked quietly, and Joe Mack tried to keep talking. The warmth and the comfort were making him sleepy. To go to sleep would be fatal. He doubted if this young man would attack him, but he would certainly try to capture him. To gain possession of his gun, at least.

  When the stew was ready they sat down on opposite sides of the table, with Joe Mack facing the door. The window was thick with frost, and he doubted anyone could see in.

  “Don’t be ambitious,” Joe Mack said, “because I have the gun in my belt. I am very quick.”

  “I have heard about your cowboys and the fast draw. Is it true, then? Were there really gunfights like in the films?”

  “Much more so. Of course, you had them here, too, only you called them duels. Your poet Pushkin was killed in one.”

  “You know Pushkin?” Peter was surprised.

  “Of course. I’ve read many of your Russian writers.”

  The stew was good, and for a time they ate in silence.

  Joe Mack was listening, waiting for a noise from outside and hoping it would not come.

  His eyes searched the room. This man read a great deal. There were maps, also. He would have a look at those. He finished the stew and poured coffee for both.

  “You do not appear like a savage.”

  Joe Mack smiled. “Most Indians are not. They are civilized, industrious people.” His eyes met those of Peter Petrovich. “I am not like them. I am a savage.”

  “But—”

  He gestured. “All this—the forest, the wilderness—it is my home. With each day I find myself regressing. In here”—he put a hand over his heart—“I am an unreconstructed Indian. I am supposed to be escaping, and to win my own battle, I must escape. Nevertheless, in many ways I’d rather stay here.”

  “Become a Russian? But I am sure that can be arranged.”

  “They have already made offers. But you misunderstand. I am tempted not to try to escape but to remain here, in the forest, and wage my own private war against the Soviet Union.”

  “But that’s absurd!”

  “Is it? Perhaps. But your people declared war on me. They forced my plane down at sea, captured me, and intended to question me. When that was over they would have killed me, I believe.” He emptied his cup. “It was demeaning and to me, an insult.”

  Peter Petrovich refilled both their cups. “You Americans are preparing for war. We have to know how you are preparing.”

  “Americans do not want war. No sensible person does. Why should we? We have all we need. What we do not have, we can make or buy. We can travel to any place in the world. We have no Berlin Wall to prevent it.”

  “Many of us travel, too,” Peter declared.

  “Of course. There are thousands of you in Afghanistan, and many are dying there. Perhaps travel is bad for Russians.” He smiled. “But we need get in no discussion; I am sure we’d not agree. But if we talk about books?”

  “I am curious about you.”

  “So was Colonel Zamatev. But to him I was nothing, something to be used and cast aside. This is an offense against my country, but it is also an offense against me, and for this he shall pay.”

  Peter Petrovich smiled, incredulously. “Pay? How can you make him pay? You cannot even see him. You cannot get to where he is; you cannot reach him in any way. You are simply one prisoner among many.”

  “I am different. I am the prisoner who escaped.”

  Peter shrugged. “It will not matter. Here, why don’t you surrender to me? I shall see if I cannot arrange some special treatment.”

 
; Joe Mack got to his feet again. He hated the thought of going out again into the cold, of finding a place to sleep in a snowbank, but there was no choice. If he slept here, he would sleep too soundly. Even if he tied Peter Petrovich tightly, he still would not be safe. The man might work himself free.

  “Put together a package of food. Move carefully now, and make no mistakes.” He pointed at the items he wanted and watched the pack being made up. His eyes strayed, taking in everything. “You have a pistol?”

  Peter hesitated. “In the forest it is necessary to be armed. There are wild animals as well as brigands.”

  “Brigands, in the Soviet Union?”

  “They have always been here. It is their life. They rob and they steal, and often they kill.”

  “All the more reason I should have another weapon or more ammunition for this one.”

  He gestured with the pistol barrel. “Be quick. I have no more time.”

  “You will freeze. It is more than forty below out there.”

  “It has been much colder.” He gathered the package and backed to the door. Then he said, “Put your hands behind you.”

  “Now see here—!”

  “Would you rather have me bend my pistol barrel over your skull?”

  When he had Peter nicely tied, he picked him up and dropped him on the bed. Then he put fuel on the fire. “Just so you won’t freeze. By the time that burns down it will be morning, and someone will come.”

  He rummaged through the drawers and found what he wanted, a double handful of cartridges for his own pistol, a common enough type. He turned the light down and then gathered his gear and went into the night. Quickly he rounded the house and headed east, picking up his crudely made snowshoes as he went. He walked rapidly and steadily eastward toward the sea.

  Hours later he turned north, changed direction several times, and then veered back to the north again. Removing the snowshoes, he slung them on his back over his pack and hit a forest trail in a long, easy run. By daylight, he believed, he was more than twenty miles from the village.