White Star

by James Thayer

  His thoughts careened to Pete Coates. Then to Mrs. Orlando. He owed them.

  He reached for his rifle and began crawling again. His mind was gone. He did not have the capacity to order his body to continue. It acted on its own. He came to the cap and rifle that had fooled him. The hat was on a stick, and the weapon was balanced on a log with a length of twine between the stock and a nearby maple trunk. When the wind moved the maple, the trunk swayed and so did the rifle, just a little, not as much as the background foliage, making the rifle appear to move independently of the foliage. A good ruse, he decided dimly.

  When hunting for animals it is always assumed the target has been hit, but when hunting for men that assumption is never made. Trusov grimaced as he ejected the smoking brass casing. The distance had been only four hundred yards, but Trusov had seen human movement, so he had snap fired. He had fired too quickly. After the shot he had seen a fine mist of blood in the air, so he had hit something. But he dared not waltz over to find out. Now he could see nothing but underbrush through his telescope. He brought out binoculars for a wider view. Nothing. But then he detected again the smell of burned flesh.

  There was a chance Owen Gray still lived, but it would be foolish for the Russian to remain in one place to speculate on it further. Tree to tree, Trusov moved downhill toward the bowl's center. Either Gray was dead, in which case the vultures and ravens would soon alert Trusov, or Gray was alive but soon dead, and the birds would have to wait awhile. The Russian moved softly across the ground, a specter flowing along silently and smoothly, closing in on the American.

  The Winchester pulled Gray along. Down the slope, toward the seam of the bowl, crawling, one hand on the wood stock, the other uselessly waving in the air. His head was downhill, and gravity seemed to pull the pain into Gray's head. Even blinking hurt. His arm and ruined hand were lost in agony somewhere beyond his left shoulder. He scrabbled over stones and through barricades of thistle and wild raspberry. Because his ears rang with pain to the exclusion of all other sounds, Gray could not judge his own sound. He guessed he was making as much noise as a belled cow. But his thoughts were few and growing fewer. He did not have long. His body and mind were moments from surrendering.

  Gray glimpsed a patch of skin—maybe a cheek, maybe a wrist or forearm—off to his left four hundred yards. Too little and too fast to dope it in before it disappeared in the kaleidoscope of leaves and boughs. That fleeting patch was moving closer, yet in a roundabout way. Trusov was following his nose, Gray vaguely suspected. Gray could no longer care.

  Gray came to the porcupine he had killed. A bird or rat had eaten out its eyes, but otherwise it was intact, its quills dully reflecting the morning sun. Each time Gray exhaled, his lungs paused, as if wanting to be stilled forever. He tried to rise to his feet, but his legs gave out and he toppled sideways into the dry cheat grass, his hand brushing the porcupine's quills. Gray's vision misted, then began to go dark. A quill stabbed at him insistently.

  The tantalizing scent of cooked flesh had lingered in the bowl all night and now again in the new morning. Gray was shackled to the odor like a ball and chain. The smell was an inescapable telltale.

  Trusov moved south and then back north until he had centered the odor. He moved toward it, through a thick stand of pine, the smell growing stronger. Owen Gray, Trusov's great tormentor, had to be within four hundred meters, dead ahead.

  The Russian dropped to his knees. The trees offered thick cover. Because he was low, he could see only thirty or forty meters in any direction, and that also meant that he was not presenting a target for a distant shot. The scent was like a homing beacon. Owen Gray was ahead, now perhaps only three hundred meters. Trusov pushed himself through the underbrush as silently as a shrew.

  Then at two hundred fifty meters the woods opened slightly, and there on the ground was a body, partially obscured by trees and brush and just visible above bunches of wild grass. Gray's olive pant leg and his khaki shirt, dappled by intervening syringa leaves. The clothes were charred. Here was the source of the odor that had been beckoning Trusov.

  His moment of victory was upon him, but Trusov frowned bitterly. Gray might already be dead. The body lay still. Then it appeared to move. Trusov squinted. The movement might have been an illusion, caused by the sway of leaves. The body moved again.

  Prone on the ground, Trusov positioned his Mosin-Nagant in front of him. His fingers were swollen from the wasp stings, and his trigger finger barely fit into the guard. He found the khaki shirt in his scope, then it was hidden by waving leaves, then visible again. A sure shot even through the brush.

  Trusov's exquisite moment was at hand. Decades in the making. He nudged the rifle down the shirt for the pant leg.

  His finger smoothly came back. A hair's width at a time, the trigger giving lovely resistance. The trigger came back and back.

  The rifle fired and snapped back into Trusov's shoulder. The sound of the shot burst away and then echoed in the bowl. He worked the bolt, sighted in, and squeezed again, this time sending the projectile into the thigh. The body bounced as the bullet ripped into it.

  The third shot was aimed at Gray's chest, but the target was mostly obscured by underbrush. The bullet flew true and the body jumped. Gray's head was not visible through the scope, hidden behind brush, but Trusov sent two more bullets where he estimated Gray's head to be.

  Nikolai Trusov rose to his feet. He touched the fresh wound on his forehead, then the older wound, the deep gouge that had been with him since his first encounter with White Star. Now it was over. He walked toward the corpse of his enemy. Trusov had always been the careful soldier, so he moved slowly, a fresh shell in the breech. He pushed aside thimbleberry and syringa as he approached. Fifty meters to Gray's body, to his vindication, to his rapture.

  The body lay still. As he drew near, Trusov could see two of his bullet holes, torn red gaps in the cloth. He could see burns on the cloth. Not much blood, though, so perhaps the burns and Trusov's earlier hit had killed Gray a while ago after all. The smell of seared flesh was now strong. He walked with more confidence, pushing aside syringa branches and stepping over bunches of cheat grass. Closer to the body, to the ineffable pleasure, to the capstone of his years of dreaming.

  Five meters from the body, Trusov's mouth twisted with anticipation. And then he saw it was wrong. Everything was wrong. The Russian was allowed three seconds of astonishment. The pant leg was filled with grass. The burned shirt covered not a human body but the body of that quilled animal Trusov had hacked at with his knife the day before. Just behind the porcupine, a small fire had been ignited, using the dry grass, and the fire had scorched the porcupine's body, providing the fresh scent of burned flesh, Trusov's homing beacon. It was all wrong, shockingly wrong.

  Trusov only had time to bring up his rifle a few inches.

  His left foot danced when a bullet tore through his ankle. The Russian instinctively shifted his weight to save himself from falling. He desperately looked around for the source of his torment and tried again to bring up his rifle.

  Then his leg buckled, shot through at the knee. A rifle's bellow came from uphill, from somewhere in the pines. Trusov kept himself upright with his good leg, and twisted around looking for a target but found only pieces of his shattered knee and splashes of blood on the ground behind him.

  Trusov stabbed the ground with his rifle trying to catch himself, but a second bullet streaked through his left elbow, almost severing his forearm from his body. Trusov screamed and began sliding to the ground, losing his grip on his rifle.

  Another shot, this one tearing apart his right arm. Trusov's arms were nothing but useless flails, hanging by strips of flesh from smashed elbows.

  Toppling and twisting, Trusov cried out, a shriek of rage and perhaps of sorrow. But the sound was lost in yet another shot. A bullet flew through the meat of both thighs, spraying a nearby tree with fragments of the Russian.

  Trusov landed on the ground near the porcupine. He tried to squ
irm toward his rifle, but neither his legs nor arms worked, and he lay still, his eyes open. Waiting.

  Not for long. Owen Gray emerged from the trees, his reloaded Winchester on Trusov. Gray was almost naked, with mud and pine needles and seeping burns covering his body. His mouth was open and his breath was a rasp. He weaved as he came for the Russian, and fifteen feet away Gray had to stop. He tottered, then found his footing again and stepped ahead. Even Gray's rifle waggled unprofessionally, as if a bough in the wind. He held the weapon in his good hand.

  Gray had only a meager recollection of having surfaced from the blackout a few moments ago, prompted by the porcupine's quills stabbing his hand. From somewhere—from the depth of his training or from the desperate need to beat the Russian—he had found the strength to take off his pants and stuff a few handfuls of grass into the remaining pant leg. Then with a match he had ignited a handful of dry cheat grass and had burned some of the porcupine's belly flesh, leaving a trail of scent for the Russian. Then he had draped his shirt over the animal and had crawled away to wait.

  Now Gray stepped across pine needles and loose pebbles to the Russian. Gray's steps were small and uncertain, and he had to balance himself after each new step. He fought the blackness that wanted to take him.

  The Russian stared back at him. He coughed, inhaled raggedly, and whispered, "That was good. Burning that animal's body, letting me think the smell was from you, drawing me to your trap."

  "I don't feel like chatting." With difficulty Gray bent to the porcupine, to his pants. He pulled the spiral notebook from the pocket and ripped out a sheet. He fumbled with the paper but after a few seconds the fabled white star emerged.

  Breathing shallowly and gurgling, the Russian stared at him. The red shell he had hoped to leave at Gray's body had fallen from his shirt pocket and lay beside him, insignificant in the grass.

  "This is from me." Gray let the white star float down to the Russian's chest. Trusov followed it with his eyes. It landed on his bloodstained shirt.

  "You and I are even now." Gray's voice was crabbed with pain. "Our accounts are balanced. I'm done with you." He took a few steps away from Trusov.

  Trusov might have sensed a reprieve. He asked weakly, "You are done with me?"

  A long moment passed, Gray weaving as if from a strong wind.

  Gray turned back, as if with an afterthought. "But then there's Mrs. Orlando. Her account is still owing."

  Gray lowered the rifle, put its snout against Trusov's forehead, and pulled the trigger. The Russian's head came apart.

  "That was from her."

  Gray managed only two steps away from Trusov's body until he sagged to the ground. There he lay, wondering for a few seconds if he would be found, then able to wonder no more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The two-man crosscut saw creased the log, gliding across the pine, but it was a feeble effort, and the saw did more sliding than biting. A twin was on each end of the tool. Their usual smooth teamwork had abandoned them. They pulled and pushed against each other, the saw teetered and wobbled, and the log remained largely unscathed.

  "Can we quit now?" Julie asked.

  "You didn't give it much of a try," Gray replied.

  "Maybe you could spell us." Carolyn wiped her brow with histrionic embellishment.

  "Can't. Doctor's orders. The surgeon said specifically, 'No two-man crosscut sawing.' "

  Julie pulled again on the saw, to no effect, as her sister also pulled at the same time.

  The woodshed's four new corner posts were now set in concrete. Adrian had leveled the concrete with a trowel. Tools from the closet were spread around the construction site.

  The girls tried to balance the crosscut saw in the groove, but they hadn't cut far enough into the log, so they laid the saw on the ground.

  Gray was sitting on a stump. He lifted a canteen from his lap and took a long drink.

  "The girls and I have a pretty good start on your woodshed," Adrian said. "Are you going to be able to finish it after I'm gone?"

  "One way or another."

  "Will you have enough return in your hand?" She sat next to Gray, taking the proffered canteen.

  "Viable but flail. That's the surgeon's term."

  "What's that mean?"

  "I'll keep all my fingers, but the smallest two—the little finger and ring finger—aren't going to be of much use. I won't be able to flex or open them. In their charming terminology, the surgeons call such useless fingers flails."

  Gray's hand was wrapped in gauze over which was an ulnar gutter splint held in place by an Ace wrap. The two fingers were covered, but three showed. The gutter splint reached a point four inches above his wrist.

  Two weeks had passed since the showdown with Trusov. Gray had been in a Boise hospital all that time, and had just returned to the Sawtooths. Under his loose shirt, his back and shoulders were dressed with gauze. Same with his leg under his pants. The hair on his head was starting to grow back, but still looked ragged. The healing burns on his scalp were scabbed and pink. His ear was also healing. Stitches had closed the first wound Trusov had inflicted, on Gray's arm. He would be returning to the hospital for skin grafts. Gray's old tracheotomy scar was the only part of him that didn't hurt.

  Adrian had taken care of the children at the cabin for those days. But now Gray was back. Her bag was packed and on the porch.

  "They took bone from my hip, a spare tendon called a palmaris from my right wrist, and a sural nerve from my leg, then put all of those assorted parts into my hand. I'll also need skin grafts, and that's the part that bugs me."

  The girls had heard it before but they listened intently, adoration and worry written large on their faces.

  "How so?" Adrian drank from the canteen.

  "Trusov's bullet took out my ulnar artery. I was spraying blood all over like the stuff was free, so I cauterized the wound with a matchbook, as you know. But the surgeons tell me there was no need to do that. That artery would have closed itself off in what they call a vasospasm. I just added to the injury by burning the hell out of myself."

  "But you thought you were bleeding to death. It was a good choice under the circumstances."

  Gray shrugged.

  The twins stepped up to the porch. Shards from the shattered window lay on the ground. A glass repairman from Ketchum had already visited. Adrian had set the door back on its hinges. It would work until a more permanent repair could be made.

  Hobart's only police car pulled into the yard, stopping next to the larch tree. Chief Durant was behind the wheel and Pete Coates was in the passenger seat. Durant had found Gray unconscious in Shepherd's Bowl that day, had brought him out, and had spent days at the Boise hospital looking after him. He waved at them, then looked at his watch. Time to get Adrian and Pete to the airport was growing short. She was scheduled to be back in Moscow in two days.

  Adrian's forehead and neck were patched with small bandages. Her skin was so white the bandages seemed to blend in. She was wearing washed-out jeans and a denim shirt. She and Gray were silent a moment, watching the twins furtively observe them and speculate about them.

  "Got it," John yelled, pumping his arm. He was sitting on a patch of grass near his father. "New record." He beamed with Game Boy success. Gray gave him a thumbs-up and the boy immediately returned to the game.

  Pete climbed out of the car and walked toward them. His right arm was in a sling. He had been in the hospital bed next to Gray's for most of a week.

  Adrian watched him approach. His face was gray, and he had not figured out how to shave with his left hand, so his chin and a cheek were nicked.

  She asked, "Why did Trusov have to shoot at Pete?"

  "He knew we were partners. Maybe Trusov wanted to make sure Pete wouldn't help me in the field. Or maybe the Russian just couldn't help firing at him. He was like a crow that eats robin chicks. It was his nature, no more to be denied than a crow's nature."

  "How did Trusov know you and Pete would be at the fire to
wer?"

  "He couldn't have. Trusov was traveling to the fire tower for the same reason we were, for a look at the land from a high point. We just happened onto him."

  "But I thought you and Pete knew Trusov to still be twenty miles away at the time."

  Gray closed his eyes a moment. "He fooled us, didn't he? Not for the first time."

  On the porch the twins watched them, speculating.

  Coates stopped in front of Gray. "Owen, when are you coming back to Manhattan?"

  "I don't know."

  Coates glanced at Adrian, then back to Gray. "Are you coming back, Owen?"

  "Most likely."

  "I mean, we're a good team—me arresting the pukes and you blowing the prosecution. At least they spend some time in jail between arrest and acquittal."

  "I'll be back most likely, Pete."

  "You proved to me you know sniping, but it's clear there's lots you don't know, I'll guarantee you that." Coates smiled. "Come back to Manhattan and I'll teach you the rest."

  He threw a kiss to the twins and patted John on the shoulder as he walked back to the police car.

  Adrian dabbed at a bandage on her neck. "Let me ask you something, Owen. Give me a straight answer."

  "I always do."

  "You always do eventually, after I've spent a good deal of time prying it from you. Why didn't you just call in a squadron of those Air National Guard helicopter gunships and have them spray all of Shepherd's Bowl. There was an easier way to rid the world of Nikolai Trusov, but you chose not to do it the easy way."

  After a moment Gray brought his eyes around to hers. "I wanted him." His voice was compelling. "Me, not some helicopter."