The Cossacks below went about their wasteful ways, unaware of watchers. Not once had any of the bear-men looked up at the surrounding trees. They believed themselves complete masters on this part of the Tanana River. Soon they would know the truth. The Dená were reclaiming their ancestral homedespite the Czar.
Slayer-of-Men knew the location of all four Cossacks, as well as that of the ten soldiers with the tank who followed their orders, and the twenty slaves who labored for them. One of the Cossacks lay with a slave at the foot of the tree from which the Dená warrior watched. He glanced down with distaste at the couple.
The woman’s head angled away from the Cossack and the Athabascan Indian could easily see a dark bruise pushing her eye shut. If a man treated a free woman of the Dená like that, she would kill him or die trying. But then this woman was a slave.
The sound of hammers and saws echoed through the late summer foliage. A scattering of yellow and gold leaves heralded the imminent change of season; soon the birch trees wouldn’t hide a squirrel, let alone a man.
His long, black hair was tied back from the blotchy face paint matching his camouflaged dungarees. The sleeves of his shirt bulged over well-muscled arms as he braced himself. Slowly, carefully, he continued to flex his leg.
With a grunt the Cossack finished with the slave and pushed her toward the work site. The bear-man glanced around lazily, then lifted his gaze to the trees bordering the clearing. Slayer-of-Men thanked the spirits for his location at the man’s back. The Cossack strutted back toward the construction commotion and began shouting orders at those nearest him.
From his perch, Slayer-of-Men could see for miles over the wide, shallow Tanana River dotted with small islands scattered over the floodplain. The forest on the far bank presented a seemingly impenetrable wall to the uninitiated. Off to the northwest lay the Charley Hills and the great Yukon River.
The Dená warrior visually located every member of the Russian compound one more time before easing down the tree to those who waited for him. He felt certain this action would be like all the rest—completely successful and another victory for his People.
7
Construction Camp 4 on the Tanana River
Grigoriy Grigorievich ducked his head and pulled down hard on the crosscut saw. Sawdust and chips sprayed across him. He automatically shook his head before he pushed up and watched the man above him pull the long saw back to start the next cut. Four more cuts, he calculated, and the last log would be planked out.
“Pull!” Dimitri said above him, continuing the cadence. “Push. Pull. Push. Pull.”
Halfway through the next downward cut, the last two pieces of the log fell apart into planks.
“Letting go!” Grisha said loudly and released the saw handle. He kneaded the hardening blisters on his hands while stumbling out of the saw pit. He shook himself off and brushed madly at his hair to dislodge as much of the chips and dust as possible.
Without raising his head he glanced around the clearing, locating all four Cossacks. The soldiers would give a man time to catch his breath. But the Cossacks interpreted a prisoner’s lack of motion as a personal affront.
Grisha waved madly until the closest Cossack nodded, then grabbed a handful of leaves and scuttled into the brush toward the malodorous slit trench. He dropped his ragged trousers and balanced narrow buttocks across the birch pole that served as a seat. Carefully he breathed through his mouth while his bowels released their watery load. He allowed himself to dwell on the fact that he was still losing weight before forcing his thoughts elsewhere.
Unbidden, unstoppable, he thought of Pravda and the clean pleasure of running full out down some beautiful channel.
His sphincter clenched and he briskly used the leaves with his left hand. He pushed himself off the pole and bent to pull up his pants. A dizzying blow sent him reeling forward to fall full on his face, his clothing still down around his ankles.
Quickly he rolled onto his back and pulled his knees up over his exposed loins. Vich-something, the Cossack sergeant, towered over him, legs wide, arms akimbo, and his gravel voice ground at Grisha.
“With good fortune you’re blessed, pretty one,” he said in Russian.
“Out of twenty new mares, four of them are actually female. But soon you will know a stallion’s strength, just like all the other animals on our little farm.” He laughed without pretense at humor.
“Quickly return to work, you dung-eater! Or I will geld you now before your strength dissipates.”
Grisha jerked the trousers up as he rolled over, lurching to his feet he ran toward the rapidly rising lodge. He knew he could kill one of them with his bare hands, but not four, especially when all were armed. He hoped to last long enough to kill at least one.
Basil, the wide-shouldered Georgian, grunted as he pried a log end up to secure the rope around it. Grisha skidded to a halt next to him, already on his knees, and pushed the noose over the squared-off tree trunk.
The straw boss, a thick Indian or Creole woman from somewhere to the west, barked a command and four women tightened the rope to take the log’s weight off the pry bar. Grisha jumped up and helped hoist the log high enough to maneuver the end into the corner notch where it belonged.
At the other corner of the ten-meter wall, Basil, the wild-haired woodsman, hacked furiously to cut the place where the log’s lower end would fit. Grisha scrambled up the wall and released the noose. Sallow-faced Andreivich, who had talked less and less as his strength drained, pushed the crude derrick around to position the rope above the back of Samis.
The burly army guard stepped forward and pointed his rifle in their general direction as Samis finished the cut before lowering himself to the ground. His short ax hung by a rope thong looped around his neck. He ignored the guard as he scrambled up onto the next corner. Taking a deep breath and careful aim he hacked out another joint.
As he went through the achingly familiar motions yet again, Grisha’s thoughts drifted to the forest. This might be bad, but out there could be worse. Rumors told of work parties disappearing, Cossacks, guards, and all, never to be heard of again.
They had been told cannibals lurked in the dense forest waiting for the unwary. No matter how grim their life under the Cossacks, they continued to live.
However, he was sure they were in Dená country, or very close to it. Soldiers from here had served under him in the Troika Guard. If there were cannibals roaming the forest he would have heard about it long ago.
But slipping away without even a knife would mean starving to death, or perhaps ending up as dinner for a bear. He reflected that, in all his military travels, until now he had never been to the interior of Russian Amerika.
Irena poked him sharply with her elbow.
“You’re cloud-gazing again, slave. Pay attention and help me pull the rope.”
Grisha tugged obediently on the rope. Irena had arrived in the same coffle of prisoners with Grisha. He’d noticed her compact, pleasing body on the trip here, before sickness dominated his life. She was the first of the coffle to be raped by the Cossacks. Even now her purpled right eye swelled as a result of further attention from one of their masters.
His willpower had dissipated in tandem with his physical strength and both approached their nadir. At the trial he had felt grateful toward the judge for saving him from the rope, even though was not sure he had received the most humane sentence. At least now the mosquitoes were nearly gone.
A breeze wafted through the trees and cleared the air momentarily. Instantly Grisha imagined himself on the deck of Pravda, the master of his domain, and free on the water. A frustrated tear leaked from the corner of his eye and he concentrated on hoisting the log onto the wall. Only three weeks completed out of thirty years.
Kazina’s name stuck in his mind. But try as he might, he could no longer picture his wife’s face. Last week he received official notice of the dissolution of his marriage. He used the paper at the slit trench and wondered if she still slept with
the naval kommander.
Another tear broke free of his suppressed emotions and blended quietly into his sweat. In all of this upheaval and hell, he nursed but one teethgritting dream—to meet Valari Kominskiya one more time. He vowed she would not live through the encounter.
Hammers sounded from the small cabins grouped around the ever-growing lodge, bringing him back to grim reality. They all worked as hard as possible to finish before the subarctic winter snapped down on the land. All this for foreigners, he thought. Why would anyone pay money to vacation here?
“Put your back into it, you cockless mare!”
Grisha gripped the rope and did as he was told.
8
Outside Construction Camp 4
Slayer-of-Men kept one ear cocked at the distant pounding while he conferred with his team. All wore the same face paint and camouflaged clothing. None of the uniforms carried any indication of rank.
“Wohosni.” His eyes flashed over the tall, thin man. “You take the Cossack in the tent.” His finger jabbed the twig model. “Paul, Claude,” he glanced at the shorter men, one burly, one slight, “you deal with the three soldiers in the kitchen.” A wood knot surrounded by smoothed dirt.
“Leader,” said Malagni, a wide-faced, big-boned man whose muscular chest threatened to split the fabric of his large shirt. “I would like a Cossack.” His fingers caressed the skinning knife he held in his other hand.
“You take the one with the Kalashnikov. He has to die first, but not too early. And don’t depend on your knife, use your bow.”
“I understand,” Malagni said through a wide smile.
“Heron.” The man personified the bird. “You eliminate the soldier on the turret. Lynx, you take out the tank with the satchel charge. Remember, we want their slaves alive; that’s the reason we’re here.”
“Maybe that’s true for you, big brother,” Malagni said. “But I’m here to kill Cossacks.”
“That’s our second reason,” the tall man said. “Alex, you move in on the left here”—he pointed at the twig standing upright—“and as soon as Malagni takes out his Cossack, you destroy the radio with your satchel charge.” Alex, easily the handsomest man present—despite the blotches of paint—nodded and displayed perfect teeth.
“Cora, you cover Alex; we have to get the radio. Wing, can you get two with your bow before they know what’s happening?”
“Of course I can,” the raven-haired woman said as she thrust out her finely chiseled chin. “You know that.”
“Just checking. I want you to get the armed guard here”—his finger prodded dirt in the model layout—“and cover this one. If he makes a move to shoot, kill him.”
She grinned, causing the scar on her wide cheek bone to bend back on itself. “Can’t I just kill him?”
“No. We need trained people.” Slayer-of-Men felt proud as he looked over the nine under his command. Each of them had commanded raids like this in the past.
They were the best warriors the Dená nation offered. He fervently believed that every day brought them closer to the time when the Cossacks and their masters would be driven from Dená land. And people like these would lead new armies.
“You must all be in place by the time the shadows have moved from here”—his finger traveled less than a hand’s width—“to here. I will signal and, after Malagni kills the Kalashnikov, the attack begins.”
Murmurs of assent dissipated in the air and the team melted into the brush. Slayer-of-Men made his way back to the wide oval hacked out of the forest by the Russians. He waited and watched the huge Cossack who sat on the small guard platform with an automatic rifle resting across his knees.
There would be more weapons like that in the camp. The Cossacks ruled their world so completely that they felt only one of them at a time needed to be armed in this manner. Every one of their camps the Dená had attacked had been just like this one.
The only deference the Russians made to their previous losses elsewhere was the decrepit tank sitting on the riverbank. The tankers had lapsed into boredom and indifference over a week ago. The prisoners didn’t need the machine to keep them working; the Cossacks did that.
The Cossacks wasted their own strength, Slayer-of-Men thought for the second time in less than an hour. He knelt and took his bow from its hiding place. Nocking a metal-headed arrow, he leaned back and calmly waited for his team to strike.
The shadows crawled inexorably along their appointed paths.
9
Construction Camp 4
Grisha could not ignore his thirst any longer. One of the many Cossack rules forbade convicts more than one drink of water per hour. He felt sure dehydration due to diarrhea played no part in their calculations; a drink of water would improve his work. Perhaps if he just explained it to them.
The water station stood directly in front of the squat guard tower. A Cossack corporal dominated the middle of the newly built square, a Kalashnikov resting across his muscular thighs. Fear threatened the tightness of Grisha’s bowels as he spread his arms outward in the prescribed manner and shuffled forward.
As if it were animate, the barrel of the automatic weapon lazily centered on Grisha’s chest. The corporal’s blocky, bearded face remained bereft of expression. When Grisha was five meters from the drinking water, the big Russian spoke with a voice reminiscent of rusty iron hinges in use.
“What are you doing here, dung-eater? You guzzled more than your share of water much less than an hour ago.”
Grisha stopped and braced as straight as he could. The weight of his hands multiplied every trembling second but he resolutely held them out.
“Yes, master, that is true.” He felt overwhelming disgust for his selfdebasement. “However I have the shitting sickness and my body does not retain the fluid—”
“Then shit in a cup.” The Cossack jerked the slide back on the weapon and released it to snap a round into the chamber. One pull on the trigger and Grisha would no longer need water, ever.
His knees trembled uncontrollably, the familiar burning told him he’d slightly fouled himself, and the stench of his body hung around his face like a rotten wreath. A raven called from deep in the trees. His tongue ran over cracked, parched lips, and he felt the last reserve of energy, and care, drain from his soul. Only anger remained.
The anger sparked a determination to end this animal-like existence. If nothing else, he would die like the soldier he once was. His arms dropped.
The corporal’s mouth slowly twisted into a parody of a grin and he raised the weapon. “Go back to work now or you die.”
Grisha felt incredible freedom. This moment would have presented itself sooner or later; why endure any longer in a world without hope? He squared his shoulders and lifted his head, a Troika Guard major and boat captain one last time, and finished throwing away his life.
At least fight me bare-handed, you louse-infested sodomite.” The insolence felt so good that he grinned.
The corporal snapped the weapon to his shoulder and squinted down the barrel. He shuddered and his expression shifted to surprise.
Grisha frowned at him, wondering at the hesitation. Could the huge fool actually be considering his challenge?
The Kalashnikov clattered to the ground.
Grisha jerked back in amazement.
The corporal slowly leaned forward, and picking up momentum, toppled off the platform into a heap on the ground. An arrow protruded from the base of his skull.
Grisha snatched up the automatic weapon and, dashing back to the water, stuck his whole parched head into the wide tin basin. After three huge sucks he threw himself to the ground behind the water tank and peered around, trying to make sense of the situation. Another raven called from the forest. Two women prisoners stood in the framed—in doorway of the lodge, staring silently at the dead Cossack.
He checked the weapon. The chamber indeed held a round. He remembered the muzzle steadying on his chest and shivered.
Grisha twisted to see how the
tankers would react. The soldier who always sat on the turret seemed to be patting the cannon; a feathered shaft jutted from his back also. Grisha realized the man was trying to escape.
The soldier gracefully slid around the barrel and fell to the ground. A figure popped up from behind the riverbank and deftly tossed a blocky object into the now-vacant hatch. Grisha blinked in disbelief as the figure vanished.
The camp was under attack.
Footsteps pounded behind him and he turned to see the burly army guard racing toward the fallen Cossack. He pulled the Kalashnikov up to shoot the guard. The guard pointed his rifle from the hip, the muzzle bobbed back and forth.
Silence expanded like a bubble, then exploded with the tank. A piece of flaming debris scorched past Grisha’s head and hit the guard, knocking him gurgling to the ground, his chest a mass of blood, ripped flesh, and mangled organs.
A Kalashnikov suddenly racketed off a burst. Another explosion blew the main Cossack cabin into flinders. Chunks of wood rained down.
Out of the corner of his eye something moved rapidly toward Grisha. He recognized the straw boss, the Creole woman from west of here, what was her name?
The women all hated men. She could shoot him as well as Russians. He tightened his grip on the gun.
From the half-formed lodge a guard stepped backward on stiffened legs, staring down at his hands grasping the arrow buried in his chest. His thin scream died away and he fell over backward. The straw boss slammed into Grisha and hunched down beside him.
“If you ain’t gonna use that thing, give it to me!”
“Who do you want to shoot?” he asked.
“Cossacks!” she hissed.
Chunks of wood exploded off the guard tower at their back as the sound of another Kalashnikov grabbed Grisha’s attention. The sergeant, framed in the window of one of the finished cabins, sprayed the trees at the edge of the clearing, then again turned his weapon toward the two convicts huddled at the water station.
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