Last Of the Breed (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Putting the remaining cans in his pockets and inside his shirt, he donned the heavy sweatshirt. Then keeping under cover he went down the mountain to the river.

  It was the Tsipa, but this he did not know. It was a river, and he crouched in the willows along the bank and watched it.

  No boats, no travel, nothing.

  For a half hour he waited, picking out the log he would use to cross.

  When enough time had passed he went into the water and pushed off. The stream was not wide, but crossing was slow. Then, suddenly, he heard the put-put of a small motor!

  A boat was coming up the river.

  Chapter 5

  To go back was impossible. He could only go across and downstream, and the log offered scant cover. He slid into the water, and grasping the stub of a branch, he clung to the log, keeping his nose and mouth barely above water.

  The steady put-put of the motor continued. He dared not raise his head to look, and he tried not to guide the log too much. Steadily the motorboat drew closer. By the sound it was an outboard motor.

  His heart began to pound with slow, heavy beats. He breathed deeply, prepared to submerge if need be. Up to this point he was sure he had not been seen, nor had he left any evidence of his passing since the first hour or so of his escape. Consequently, any search for him must cover a wide area and could not be concentrated. If he were seen by someone who could report him, all that would be ended.

  If the unknown man in the boat so much as glimpsed him, that man must be destroyed. That the man might be armed and might shoot on sight, he understood.

  Was this someone searching for him? A hunter? A fisherman? Or some traveler returning to his home?

  The log was between himself and the boat, yet the top of it cleared the water by no more than six inches. Suddenly the sound of the motor seemed to change. The boat was coming nearer, nearer.

  He took a deep breath and went under the water. The boat came nearer, then passed so close he felt the surge of water from the propeller. Carefully, he let his head rise above water. The boat was going on upstream, and he steered the log more crosswise of the slight current to give him cover until he could get to shore.

  It was a low shore of willows, and he crawled up on the bank, shivering, glad to have the sun’s warmth. He lay there for a few minutes, letting the sun dry away some of the water that soaked his clothes.

  He had lost his staff but found another, a stout stick that he improved a little with the stolen knife.

  Restless and eager to be moving on, he walked away from the river, heading east. He left the willows and poplar of the river bottom and worked his way through a larch forest, mingled with some fir and pine of an unfamiliar kind. There were thickets of chokecherry, which he remembered from boyhood days, and groves of aspen.

  He took his time, speed being no longer an essential. Now he must prevent discovery and think of survival. At noon, in a tight grove of fir, he ate his second can. It was also fish.

  Here and there he found a few chokecherries, but the fruit was so thin around the pits that it offered little except the tart sweetness of the taste.

  Slowly, his clothes dried out.

  He moved carefully, for at any time he might come upon a hunter or a prospecting party. Hunters he hoped to avoid, but a party of prospectors might provide what he wanted most, a map.

  A prospector in Siberia was unlikely to be alone. He would probably be one of a party sent out by the government, and he would be well provided with maps of the terrain over which he was working.

  When he had walked for two hours and covered what he believed was about five miles, he sighted the larger river, flowing toward him. He walked on, keeping under cover. He found animal tracks but nothing human. The river lay between two mountain ridges, and when the shadows began to grow long he turned and climbed higher on the flank of the nearest ridge. Warm air rises, and it would be warmer halfway up the ridge than at the bottom.

  On the slope where he found his bed he also found some ptarmigan berry, or what the Indians knew as kinnikinic. He ate some of the berries, which were nourishing but rather tasteless. From under the bushes he gathered some of the dried leaves, to make a tea.

  From birchbark he prepared a dish, and kindling a small fire he boiled water for his tea, making sure the flames did not touch the bark above the water level. The tea was bitter but tasted good.

  He had built his fire of dried sticks that gave off almost no smoke, and he had built it under a fir tree where the rising smoke, little though it was, was thinned by passage through the thick boughs.

  Keeping his fire small and using a rock for a reflector, he huddled close and began to examine his situation more closely.

  He was a hunted man in the largest country on earth. Most of the area where he now moved was a wilderness. His travel would be on foot, hence slow. Winter was going to overtake him, and travel in winter, in his condition, was unthinkable.

  His situation had been improved by his stealing the knife and the sweatshirt, but only a little. He needed a weapon that could kill game at a distance and was silent. Well, his people had solved that question long ago with the bow and arrow.

  He had often made bows and was skilled in their use. Often he had lived in the wilds of the mountains of Montana or Idaho and on up into British Columbia with no other weapon. To make a good bow needed time, so he must find a secure place in which to hide out.

  He would need meat. More than that, he would need fat, always the most difficult thing for a man to obtain in the wilds. So far he had thought only of putting distance between himself and his pursuers, but by now the chase would have widened and they would be everywhere. He must move on, more slowly, seeking out a place to hide and wait, a place where he could kill some of the game he had glimpsed or whose tracks he had seen.

  He must take some skins. Above all he must get some furs. He would need warm clothing.

  Yet he must face reality. Acquiring a supply of food to last a winter through was virtually impossible, starting at this late date.

  He considered himself. From boyhood he had at every opportunity gone back to the woods. He had lived and survived under some of the bitterest conditions. He had killed or gathered his own food; he knew how to make clothing; he had often made moccasins, something not every Indian knew how to do anymore. Joe Mack banked his small fire and bedded down in a mound of leaves with fir boughs over him. It was cold and it was drafty, but Joe Mack had lived so before this.

  Suddenly his eyes opened wide.

  Alekhin! Alekhin had never failed to track down an escaped prisoner. Alekhin was a Yakut, a counterpart of the American Indian. He would know the wilderness and he would know how to think about it. He would know how Joe Mack would try to survive, and he would know what he needed.

  It was Alekhin, not Zamatev, who was his first and worst enemy. Zamatev might direct. He might order. He might muster all the forces in Soviet Siberia to find one man, but it was Alekhin of whom he must beware, for Alekhin would think like an Indian. He would understand survival, and sooner or later somebody would see him and report his presence.

  Alekhin was a master tracker, and Joe Mack knew that no man could long deceive such as Alekhin. The Yakut would find his trail and follow him. He might even surmise where he was going and be there waiting when Joe Mack arrived.

  He, Joe Mack, had no friends in Siberia. Or none that he knew of. He supposed there were dissidents. In fact, he had heard of them. There were also many people in Siberia who longed for freer and less stringent ways, but that did not mean they would be disloyal to their government. Mother Russia they had called it under the Tsars and many still thought of it so. They might not entirely approve of their government but it was their government, and they had but little good news about America.

  If he was seen he would be reported, captured, or shot. Although there might be people sympathetic or friendly, he knew none of them nor where to find them. He must consider every man and every woman his enemy.


  Most of all he must think of Alekhin.

  On the thirty-second day of the search Alekhin arrived at the remote cabin of Alexei Vanyushin. Alexei, whose partner had gone back to Chita, was alone, and he was glad of the visitor even if it was a Yakut.

  Alekhin was a man of patience. The search for the escaped American had covered Siberia for three weeks before he had been ordered to participate, yet he had watched and listened for all that time. It had amused him that the American should disappear so completely and that he alone knew how and why.

  The search had centered around towns, along the borders, along the Trans-Siberian, everywhere but where it should have been. Alekhin respected Zamatev even though he did not like him. The Russian was unbelievably thorough. He was also cruel and completely ruthless, something the Yakut understood and admired. Zamatev’s trouble was that he was Zamatev and a Russian.

  A Russian did not think like a Yakut. Moreover, he did not think like a Sioux. Zamatev did all the right things, but in this case they were wrong, for he did not understand the manner of man he was pursuing.

  When the Yakut was ordered to take up the search he knew every vestige of a track had been wiped out by tramping feet, racing automobiles, and the generally wasted efforts.

  To capture an escaped prisoner one has to think like an escaped prisoner. And if that prisoner is an Indian, one has to think like one.

  Alekhin was in no hurry. The American was not going to get out of Siberia before winter, and the winter would probably kill him. It was no use rushing off in all directions. First, one had to decide what the American had done.

  The initial search had been quick and thorough, yet the American had not been found. Hence, he was beyond the limits of their search before it began. The American had been an athlete, hence he could run, and so he had.

  The first search had failed, the further search had employed larger numbers of soldiers but with a total misunderstanding of the man whom they sought.

  Slowly, day after day and with meticulous care, Alekhin prowled the country around. He visited every prospector’s camp, talked with hunters and fishermen, with bargemen and surveyors, and he heard nothing of significance until the day he visited Vanyushin’s remote camp.

  Vanyushin made tea. He was a young geologist and mining engineer who had found an important prospect and was developing it himself. At least, to the point where he could turn it over to a competent developing engineer and miners. He enjoyed working in wild country, and once this prospect was launched he would be off to discover another.

  “Oh, I remember the day, all right! It was either that day or the day after when Paul went to town. Left me alone for two weeks and almost out of supplies.”

  He frowned. “We thought we had more than we did, but we came up short. At least, I did.”

  “You mean you missed some supplies?”

  “Oh, no! Not really.” He gestured toward the shelves with their neat rows of cans, “I thought we had more than we did. I thought the cans were stacked three deep, but they were not.”

  Alekhin stared out the window. He looked sleepy. “Paul went to town that day? And what did you do?”

  “Went to work, of course. I was drilling at the face of the tunnel. We have no power here, so it was hand work all the way.”

  Alekhin pushed his empty teacup toward Vanyushin. “Then nobody was at the cabin?”

  Vanyushin shrugged. “No reason why there should be. Often we were both working, but there was nobody around to steal anything.”

  “But you did miss some canned goods.”

  “Oh, that was just a miscount! Paul probably put them on the shelves. We had a dozen cans of fish. It was fish from Baikal, my favorite.” He shrugged. “Maybe he ate them himself.”

  “Some men will do that. I have known soldiers to hoard food.” Alekhin sipped his tea. It was warm out there in the sunshine, another of those amazingly clear days for which the area near Yakutia was noted. “Lose anything else?”

  “No, not really.” Vanyushin frowned. “Come to think of it, yes. I lost my knife. My favorite knife. But that was Paul! Always using things and not putting them back where they belong.”

  Vanyushin made an excellent tea, Alekhin reflected. An excellent tea. His eyes scanned the tree-clad slopes, then returned to the cabin. He finished his tea and then stood up.

  Vanyushin looked up at him. God, but the man was big! Not tall, just big. He was broad and thick and not with fat. Yet he moved as smoothly as a skilled ballet dancer. Vanyushin had known such men before, but not often. What they had was power.

  Alekhin’s eyes swept the cabin again. “Snug,” he said, “but no place to spend the winter.”

  “No, I’ll come down to Chita for that. I might even go to Irkutsk.” Vanyushin stood up, too. “Sorry I couldn’t help you. “

  Alekhin’s eyes swept over the old clothing hanging from nails in the log wall. Some of the pieces were quite dusty. If something was taken from there, how long before it would be noticed?

  “You have helped,” Alekhin said. “And thank you for the tea.”

  He went outside and looked up at the hills and smiled. Now he knew.

  Alekhin did not often smile, but now he knew not only the American’s direction but something of the kind of man he was. He had stolen food so cleverly that Vanyushin had not realized, and very likely some article of warm clothing. The knife had been his only false move, but that was necessity. A man can survive with a knife. A really good man needs nothing else. Of course, he might be wrong, but Alekhin was sure. His every instinct told him Makatozi had come this way.

  A few hours later he was seated in Colonel Zamatev’s office.

  “East? The man’s insane! It’s too far! It will be too cold! Why not to China? That’s the logical way, the easy way.”

  Alekhin stared at Zamatev from heavy-lidded eyes, eyes that seemed without expression, without emotion. “He is a man of the woods, a wilderness man. You would never catch him.”

  Zamatev felt a flash of anger. Alekhin presumed too much on their years of working together. How dare the Yakut say that to him? What had come over him?

  “He is an Indian. To catch an Indian you must think like an Indian.”

  “Bah! He is a civilized man! An officer in his country’s air force! He is a graduate of a university!”

  “He is an Indian.” The Yakut put his hand on his heart. “I feel it here. Whatever else he has become, he is still an Indian. “

  “So? You understand him then? What will he do now?”

  “He will try to escape. He will live like an Indian. If trouble comes he will die like an Indian, but first he will try one more thing.”

  “What thing?”

  The Yakut looked at Colonel Zamatev, and not without satisfaction. “He will kill you,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  On the day Alekhin drank tea in Vanyushin’s cabin Joe Mack was squatting under a stone pine some fifty miles away. The stone pine was one of a considerable grove on a ridge overlooking the Kalar River.

  The last of the stolen cans of fish had been eaten, and he had several snares set under the brush not far away. Now he was watching the river.

  As a possible escape route it did not seem a likely choice: the current was strong and he would be going upstream against it. His best chance was to follow along the mountainside, letting it guide him without the danger of encountering anyone on the river or its banks.

  Thus far he had been lucky, but that could not last. The food had not been enough, but he was used to hunger. Many times as a boy in the mountains he had lived upon what he had hunted, trapped, or gathered from the forest. He must prepare to do so again.

  Progress along the mountainside would be slow, but he could keep under cover, and he doubted he would encounter anyone up in the forest.

  Animal tracks were everywhere, mostly those of deer or elk, but wolf tracks were common as well, and twice he came upon the tracks of large bear.

  His improvised s
nares yielded nothing in the time he could allow, so he retrieved his shoelaces and went on along the mountain. From time to time he found partridge berries, picking a few as he went along. They did little to appease his hunger but were pleasant to taste and gave him the illusion of eating something worthwhile.

  From an aspen he cut a strip of bark, scraping off the soft tissues between the bark and the wood. He ate the moist, pulpy flesh, as he had often done as a boy, and continued on.

  He had no illusions. Zamatev would never give up the search, and he had behind him all the power of the Soviet Union, and all they could muster in men, planes, cars, and helicopters, all linked by radio. The Armed Services would be alerted and civilian agencies mustered, and his description would be broadcast. And winter with its terrible cold would be coming.

  His one advantage was that they did not know where he was and hence could not concentrate their search. Once they did know, his chances would be cut in half at the very least.

  The air was clear and cool. The sun was bright. Siberia had very little rain and less snow, and in this area at least, clouds were rare. Yet in a mountain range somewhere before him the coldest temperatures outside Antarctica had been recorded.

  So far he had traveled slowly, hiding out when he sensed any movement, avoiding all signs left by men. He slept in snatches when the sun was warm, but the weather grew colder. He had to stop soon, as he must trap some animals for their skins. He would need clothing.

  The valley of the Kalar narrowed into a canyon, and Joe Mack, staggering and ready to drop from exhaustion, leaned against the trunk of a dead tree and stared down at the river, several miles away. He could occasionally catch a gleam of water, no more.

  He should not be tired, but lack of food was sapping even his great strength. He had traveled, he estimated, at least one hundred and fifty miles since breaking out. Most of that time he had been cold and hungry, barely subsisting on the food he could find. He had to stop. He had to recoup his strength. He had to prepare for the winter.