Last Of the Breed (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Stegman was waiting at the helicopter when the taxi let her down. “Now!” she said. “At once!”

  He asked no questions until they were in the air. “What is it?”

  “Comrade Shepilov is making arrests,” she said, “but our work is done.”

  Would they take Vanya? She hoped not. After all, what had been done? Yet she knew it was not necessary to have done something. It was enough to be suspected.

  “Suvarov is with the soldiers,” Stegman said. “Somewhere in the north. I have a map if — “

  “No. We will go back to Khabarovsk. Is there news of that woman? The Baronas woman?”

  “None. When our men reached the cabin they were gone, gone for some time. The fires were out, the ashes cold. They have gone into the forest again, I believe.”

  He picked up a distant peak and changed course a little. “Comrade Lebedev? There has been trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Yes, it seems Comrade Bocharev has taken an interest in the Baronas question. He has been making inquiries. It was necessary to report this to Colonel Zamatev.”

  She frowned. Bocharev? What did he have to do with this?

  “Our informant, the man Peshkov, has disappeared. Nobody has seen him. The others have scattered. A few arrests have been made, but the man Zhikarev has vanished also.” Suddenly his tone was angry. “I do not know what is happening! There has been much slipshod work! These people should have been arrested at once! At once! And that Zhikarev — !”

  If Baronas and his daughter had left Plastun Bay, they had gone down to the sea, or they would try to cross the border into China. The sea was out of the question. Nothing could get past that buffer zone and the strict watch kept over the waters of the Sea of Japan. Hence it had to be the border.

  From her briefcase she took a map. A crossing on the Ussuri River would be closest. When they reached Khabarovsk, she would see what could be done. In fact, if it was all right with Arkady she would go herself. She would fly to Iman.

  For the first time she began to have doubts. What if Arkady failed?

  The thing with Pennington had not gone well. He had protested that his only expertise was in insecticides and assured them he would be glad to help in that area. In fact, he knew a good deal about the infestation of mosquitoes and black flies and would cooperate. He assured them they had taken the wrong man, that he would have enjoyed meeting the Admiral but that they had not come to his section at all. She knew none of the details of the questioning or the methods used, only that they had come up with nothing except that he did know a great deal about insecticides and was willing to help with their problems. As he was valuable in that respect, there might have been hesitation to go further with the questions, but she doubted that, knowing the Colonel.

  To have that effort fail, and atop it the escape of a man whom they could not seem to recapture —

  It looked bad for Arkady, for Colonel Zamatev.

  They would say he was inept. That he was careless. That he had failed.

  If he failed, she failed also. He was her ticket to Moscow, her door to the future.

  Yet suppose they could recapture the American? Suppose there really had been something between the American and that Baronas woman? If they had her, she might be bait for a trap. She shook her head. No, it would not work. Of course not. The man would not —

  But she had heard the Americans were romantic. Was this Red Indian so? Would he come back to try to save his girlfriend? If she could be taken, it was worth an attempt.

  Of course, he would not. She told herself that, but she wondered.

  Catch her first, and then think about it. Under questioning, she would tell all they needed to know. But how to get word to the American? Ostap would know how; he always knew such things.

  But Ostap was a prisoner. Undoubtedly, he had been taken.

  Only he had not. Like she herself, Ostap had escaped. He was free, and he had gone into the forest.

  Chapter 36

  When morning came, Joe Mack stood alone upon the mountain. His hair had grown long, and rather than try to cut it with his knife he had begun wearing it in two braids that hung down over his chest. All you need now, he told himself, is a necklace of bear claws.

  His smile was grim as he studied the country below and about him. Yet his thoughts wandered, and he remembered the story of the Apache, the Indian Massai, who had been deported to Florida after Geronimo’s surrender in 1886. He had escaped from the train after they had left St. Louis, and he had worked his way across country, returning to Arizona without being seen except by a friendly Indian to whom he revealed himself. Two thousand miles or more he had traveled, much of it through populated country. Nobody had ever known the whole story, but it had been a tale worth the telling.

  In the old days the Apaches would have sung songs of his courage and his skills. Nowadays they did not sing anymore, and too many of the Indians were forgetting the old songs and the old stories. He knew many of them. His grandmother and his mother had told him the stories, and his white grandfather, too, who had known more of them than many of the Indians. He had lived close to the old men, and he knew the value of their songs and their stories. Many he had noted down; others he had simply repeated to Joe Mack when he was a small boy.

  Below him was the vast gorge with its roaring river, rimmed with jagged rocks as if born from some surrealistic nightmare, rocks gnawed upon by wind and broken by expanding ice, sheets of rock and slabs of rock and crumbled rock underneath. Below the rim, the wild, wind-torn trees leaned with the prevailing winds and cast their dead branches like skeleton bones along the narrow ledges below.

  He knew this land, knew it from his memories of Hell’s Canyon, from the Snake and the Salmon rivers of Idaho. This was like them, but wilder, somehow different. More and more he felt himself turning back the leaves of time. Fading into dimness were his days of training as an officer, his years of flying, his neat uniforms, and before them the lessons learned in school. Now he was back to the mountains of his boyhood and his memories of the wild, free mountain life.

  He had never been but superficially a civilized man. He knew that, and he knew he could, or thought he could, return to it. Now he did not know. He was a man of the wilderness, living as he had dreamed of living. His life was wild, hard, cold, and dangerous, yet he was ready for it.

  “I may be the last Indian,” he told himself aloud, “who will live in the old way, think the old thoughts.”

  He had not chosen his enemies. They had chosen him. They had ripped him away from the life he had been living, to be used, drained, and cast aside. They would have left the pitiful rags of a man, what remained after torture, after repeated, demeaning questionings. This was better. He was not afraid to die. All his life had been a preparation for dying, but dying as a warrior would die. Yet now he would not die, for dying would give them victory. He would live, he would escape, he would flaunt it in their faces. He would show them what a man could do.

  They were out there now, seeking him. Very well, let them find him, and find death.

  A few had died, he knew that. The pursuit of him had not gone easily for them. How many his traps had killed he did not know, but he knew of three who had died with the helicopter, and there had been others. All right, if they wished to pay the price, he would give them what they wished.

  No longer would he simply flee to escape them. Now he would fight back.

  Rukovsky was waiting beside the fire when Suvarov drove up. “He’s up there somewhere,” Rukovsky said. “It is rough, but we will find him.” He gestured. “I’ve a dozen patrols scattered along this valley. When we have eaten, we will start up the mountains. You can tell your Colonel Zamatev that we will have him.”

  Suvarov nodded, but kept his doubts to himself. “We have pursued him for months. I would like to see him taken.”

  “Have no fears. My men will take him.” He turned his back to the wind that was blowing down from the mountain. It was not a strong w
ind, but cold, very cold.

  “It will be an exercise for them. Get them in shape for the real thing. This could not have come at a better time.”

  Suvarov looked up at the mountains. Here there was some snow on the ridges and a huge bank of it under one ridge.

  “You are from the Ukraine?” Suvarov looked at the mountain again. “Have you traveled mountains in the winter?”

  “A little. No matter; my men can handle mountains. They can handle anything.”

  He looked around. “Personally, I’ll be glad to get into the hills. Get away from some of this wind.”

  Rukovsky glanced at Suvarov. “I’ve a bottle in the car. How about a nip of vodka?”

  “Why not?” Suvarov stood up, nervously. “I thought I smelled smoke?”

  “You probably did. My men have fires; they’re making tea and having a bite.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “They’ve not much longer.”

  Suvarov took a swallow from the bottle and passed it to Rukovsky. “I hear Comrade Shepilov has recruited trappers to find the American.”

  Rukovsky smiled. “No matter. We will get him first.”

  “That’s rough country up there,” Suvarov gestured. “I have not seen it myself, but I have heard stories.”

  He took another swallow from the vodka and reached for his teacup. He filled it and stood up. “I say, that’s an awful lot of smoke!”

  Rukovsky got to his feet. It was quite a lot. Suddenly he was angry. “They’ve let their fire get away from them!” He swore and reached for the radio. He asked a question and then began barking orders.

  “Get in. We will see what’s going on.” They scrambled into the car, and the driver stepped on the starter. It whirred, but nothing happened. The driver stepped on the starter again, and at that moment the smoke billowed up, a cloud of it swept over them, and they saw a wall of flame racing toward them ahead of the wind. The grass in the small valley was dry, and the fire was coming fast. “To hell with the car!” Rukovsky dropped to the ground and started for the rocks. Suvarov and the driver were only a step behind him.

  They scrambled up in the rocks where there was very little growth just as the flames swept down the valley. They hit the car and rolled around it, and then the flames got to the gas spilled around the tank. Flames roared, flames leaped up, and then the car exploded. For a moment the flames shot skyward and then roared madly as the remaining gas burned.

  Rukovsky swore again. “I will find who is responsible for this, and I’ll — !”

  The line of flames raced down the little valley, leaving the grass charred and black behind it. Only a few of the soldiers had suffered minor burns, most of them in attempting to save equipment or food.

  “Sir?”

  Rukovsky glanced around impatiently. Suvarov said, “Before you assign the blame, it would be well to think of the American.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He could have set the grass afire.”

  “Nonsense!” Rukovsky spoke and then paused to consider. “Is it likely? Would he attempt such a thing?”

  Suvarov repeated the story of the helicopter. Of numerous traps, “It is guerrilla warfare. He’s very good at it.”

  “Come! Let’s go see where the fire started.”

  Soldiers were beginning to climb down from the rocks where they had taken refuge. Most had escaped with their arms; some had escaped with rations. Three vehicles had been destroyed, the last one a truck just beyond the line of the fire.

  “This one was set afire after the fire had passed, Colonel. See? It was over this rise, out of sight of most of the command.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  Several cases of rations had been ripped open and both food and ammunition taken. An AK-47 was missing.

  Reports came in slowly. Most of the food supplies had been burned and much equipment damaged. The fire had been sudden and unexpected and had moved swiftly ahead of the wind. Most men had saved their weapons; some had rations upon them; some had been hastily gathered among the rocks and out of reach of the flames. Not enough remained to keep the command in the field.

  “Did anyone see him?”

  Nobody had seen anything, but it was apparent that the flames had come from several points. “Fire arrows,” somebody said.

  “What?” Rukovsky turned on him.

  “In the films, sir. I saw it when I was a boy. The Indians used fire arrows to set wagons afire, and sometimes they shot them over the walls into forts.”

  Rukovsky swore. “Is there a radio working?” he asked then. “I want a ration drop, and I want supplies brought in. I am going in there after him.”

  Lieutenant Suvarov said nothing. He was only a liaison officer here, and he wished he was anywhere else. It was cold here, and it would be worse up in those mountains. He was a city man, more at home in the homes of top officials and embassies than here. Why did he not get that assignment to Japan, the one he wanted if he could not have Paris? His father had been an important man with connections. The trouble was, there were others with important fathers who were still alive. And Colonel Zamatev had actually asked for him, which was a great honor, but one he was beginning to question.

  The radio was still working, and after a time they picked up a reply. Nothing could be done until tomorrow or the day after.

  “No matter,” Rukovsky said. “We can equip several squads, and we will send them out. Let’s keep moving.”

  In the shelter of a huge boulder they built a fire, and two soldiers built a shelter for Colonel Rukovsky and Suvarov. It was cold, but spring was not far off. Suvarov said as much, and Rukovsky snorted. “In this country? Is there ever spring?”

  He leaned back against the trunk of the tree that formed the back of their shelter. “Is this man really an Indian, Lieutenant?”

  “He is, sir. A very fine flyer, too, by all reports. He had been testing one of their latest fighters, among other things.”

  “One doesn’t think of a Red Indian doing things of that sort, but I know little about them.”

  “Alekhin’s hunting him, sir. Somewhere about here, in fact.”

  “I wish he’d catch him. Or that somebody would. No, I would like to do it myself. A flyer, you say? An officer?”

  “A major, sir.”

  “Where are the rest of the men?”

  “Down the valley, sir. Those who are not out on patrol. There was a more sheltered area for that number. But we’ve sentries out.”

  “Sentries? Here?”

  “The American is somewhere about, sir. And we do not know just where he is. This is a big country.”

  It was cold, but one of his men had found a ground sheet and some blankets in an incompletely destroyed truck. Colonel Rukovsky found himself liking the campfire and said as much.

  Suvarov said, “Yes, sir. It is pleasant.” Yet he did not think so at all. How had he ever got into this, anyway? If he could not be in Tokyo or Paris, why not Moscow?

  He drank some of the tea the guard had prepared and put the pot back beside the fire. The Colonel was falling asleep, so Suvarov drew his blanket around him and huddled closer to the fire.

  He had been asleep for some time, he supposed, when he opened his eyes and saw the man sitting across the fire from him.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant. Have you slept long?”

  Colonel Rukovsky opened his eyes and sat up. The man across the fire was dressed in furs, goatskins he believed, and he had an AK-47 across his knees. His right hand held the gun. His left a cup of tea.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Colonel. Your tea is excellent.”

  The man had two braids of hair falling down on his chest. He had a lean, dark face and startling gray eyes. Perhaps it was only that they looked startling from such a dark face.

  “You are the American?”

  “Major Joseph Makatozi, at your service.” The American smiled. “I have a hard time remembering that. I am afraid I’ve reverted to what my people once were.”

  “You
will be captured, you know? My men are all about.”

  “Lying about, you should say, Colonel. I am afraid I had to tie them up. We mustn’t leave them too long, or they’ll freeze.”

  “Have you come to give yourself up?”

  The American laughed. “When I am in command? Of course not. To be frank, I am just debating what use I might have for you and the lieutenant, but sadly enough I find you’d be more of a trouble than of any value.

  “No, I just dropped in for a cup of tea. I shall be leaving soon. To tell you the truth I was getting a bit tired of talking to myself.” He glanced over at Suvarov. “What has been happening?”

  Suvarov hesitated, and Rukovsky said, “Tell him if you wish. We will have him soon, anyway. By the way, Major, how did you get here?”

  “You mean tonight? Why, I just walked in. Your men were so busy talking among themselves — “

  He shook his head. “You need Siberians, Colonel. These young men are mostly town boys. I was tempted to gather all their weapons just for the joke of it.”

  He turned to Suvarov. “You were saying?”

  “I do not know what there is that you would like to know. The search for you has been quite general. Comrade Shepilov has gathered a bunch of trappers to come down on you from the north. He is a KGB officer. There have been a few arrests.

  “The bodies of the helicopter pilot and his companions have been found. Also the KGB man who was found dead in his car.”

  Joe Mack finished his tea and came suddenly to his feet. “I would take my men and go home, Colonel, if I were you. They are not suited to the mountains, and they will suffer. You will lose men and equipment, much more than I am worth to you or to the Soviet Union.”

  The AK-47 was ready in his hands. He took a step back toward the outer darkness. “Along the way,” he said, “I have encountered a few civilians. None of them helped me in any way, but I’d not want them hurt because of me. That was the reason for my question.”