Red Winter

by Smith, Dan

  The one thing I believed these victims had in common was that they had been visited by the cruellest enforcers of Bolshevism: Chekists. The men tasked with bringing the populace into line by spreading fear in their campaign of Red Terror. That was the only conclusion I could come to, looking at the massacre before me. This was not the work of some supernatural being; this was the work of men.

  I could only imagine why the perpetrators had brought their victims this deep into the forest. As far as I knew, this kind of thing was not usually kept hidden, but displayed for the world to see. After all, what use would there be for Red Terror if not to terrorise? Perhaps they had been brought here to maximise their fear. I would probably never know, but the end result was the same.

  My chest burned as I drew shallow breaths. The sweat was cold on my brow, and my body trembled as the world fell away from me, spinning into the abyss. I backed away, shaking my head, and suddenly the forest was alive with noise. Everything darkened, my mind spun in confusion, and I moved away further, afraid to take my eyes from the carnage in case the bodies should rise against me for the things I had done.

  I stumbled over something hidden in a tuft of grass, putting my hands out to stop myself, but there was nothing there for me to grab. I dropped my rifle as my arms wheeled in the air and I fell, collapsing into the cold grass, turning immediately, afraid to be so vulnerable. The frozen undergrowth brushed against my face as I searched on my hands and knees for my rifle.

  ‘Where is it?’ I said, over and over. ‘Where is it? Where is it?’

  My hands pushed against something hard and cold. I recoiled in horror at the sight of a human head lost in the foliage. I turned, desperate to find my rifle, desperate to be away from here.

  When my fingers finally curled round the weapon, I pushed to my feet and began to run.

  I ran and ran, stumbling and faltering, the low branches tearing at my face as I passed them. I felt the breath of the dead on the back of my neck, forcing me on, always threatening to catch me, and when I finally reached Kashtan, I fumbled with her reins and climbed onto her, panic and grief and guilt and revulsion all boiling in my veins.

  I kicked her hard and drove her through the forest, not daring to look back. I bent low towards her neck, an instinct to streamline myself and avoid the branches that flashed past as she wove in and out of the trees, obeying my furious commands to run faster and faster. Her hooves pounded the hard ground, and her body moved this way and that, fluid as she twisted and turned, finding the most accessible route ahead. I kept urging her on, digging my heels hard, frantic to be away from here, anxious to be in the open and to see the light of the day.

  The forest floor was treacherous, though, and when Kashtan slipped, I felt a different kind of panic. Her hooves caught on something hard, a protruding tree root or a rock, and she stumbled to one side, her flanks thumping into the trunk of a nearby tree. Her cry of pain penetrated the shock that had taken control of me. I could not survive without her. I was driving her too hard.

  Kashtan’s stride was uneven now, her steps faltering. I pulled back on her reins, but she felt my fear as if we were one being and she surged on through the forest. I struggled to bring her under control, speaking to her, slowing her.

  ‘Good girl.’ I stroked her neck. ‘It’s all right now. We’re safe.’ Once again I realised that when I was speaking to her, I was speaking to myself. ‘We’ll take it slowly now.’

  I looked back, seeing the place where she had bumped the tree, then I inspected her flanks where there was a dusting of moss and bark. ‘No broken skin. That’s lucky.’ I reached back and brushed it away. ‘You’ll have a bruise, though.’

  But there was a difference in her step, she dipped more to one side, and I suspected straight away that she had thrown a shoe during our race through the forest. I brought her to a halt and she stood, breathing hard, her chest expanding and relaxing, the smell of sweat oozing from her well-lathered coat. I climbed down and soothed her before lifting her left front leg.

  ‘We’ll have to get it looked at. Can’t go far like that.’ The shoe was missing, and as well as there being a stone lodged in her hoof, a small chunk was missing on the outer edge of the wall. If the damage worsened, it could lead to serious bruising and even lameness.

  I placed her foot on the ground and looked back into the forest, turning about, searching for any signs of followers. I had that inkling once again, that something was closing in on me, and that whatever it was, I would never outrun it.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said, still watching, ‘but it’ll have to be quick.’

  From one of the rear saddlebags I took a hoof pick and checked each of Kashtan’s hooves in turn, removing any stones and clearing the dirt from around the frog. I should have done it before I had saddled her, as well as checking her shoes, but I had been in too much of a hurry.

  As I worked, I felt a constant unease, as if I were being watched.

  I untied the roll of blankets from home and cut a square large enough to put round Kashtan’s damaged hoof. I secured it with a short piece of twine round her fetlock before cutting another square, this time from the small tarpaulin that acted as my rain cover when sleeping outdoors. This, too, I tied round her hoof.

  ‘It should do for now,’ I said, hoping it would prevent any further damage.

  When that was done, I rested for a few minutes, sitting on the tarpaulin and leaning back against a tree, trying not to think about what I had left behind in the forest. Kashtan stood close and I watched her for any sign that her hoof was bothering her.

  ‘I don’t know where we are,’ I said to her.

  Just as Babushka had told us, so Marianna had told our boys that the woodland spirits would try to lead them astray in the forest by covering their tracks so they couldn’t follow them home, or by calling to them, enticing them deeper into the trees, always at the edge of their vision, always tricking. I hadn’t needed the leshii to confuse me – I’d had my own demons to do that – but I couldn’t help looking around. Alone, it was easy to imagine that something malevolent was waiting out there, hiding just out of view.

  I struggled not to think about such things. There were no rusalkas. No vengeful spirits of the dead surrounded me, preparing to descend on me from the darkness. I was alone with Kashtan. Nothing else was here.

  And yet the disquiet would not leave me.

  ‘We need to move,’ I said to her, fishing a small compass from my satchel and tapping the dirty glass cover. ‘Need to get away from here.’ I held it out to the light so I could read it better and shook my head. ‘We’re heading in the wrong direction.’ I looked over my shoulder, then put the compass away, touching the tobacco pouch in my satchel and wishing I had enough for a cigarette. It would have helped to calm my nerves, but the half-smoked stub from Tanya lay forgotten in my pocket.

  ‘What now, though?’ I had intended to further investigate the forest beyond the lake before returning to follow the treeline close to the road the women had taken, but hearing horses in the village had put a stop to that. I wouldn’t be able to return to the road yet.

  ‘We’ll go north,’ I said to Kashtan. ‘That’s where they said they were headed, so we’ll keep going that way until we’re out of the forest. Then we’ll think again. Maybe even look for the road.’ I tried to sound hopeful. ‘Perhaps find Tanya and Lyudmila. God knows I could use the company.’ And they had been following Koschei for some time. We could work together to find him.

  ‘They weren’t there,’ I said. ‘My boys. They weren’t there. I’m sure of that.’ I stood and put my face against Kashtan’s. ‘That means they might still be alive. Maybe even Marianna too.’

  He likes to drown the women.

  No. I couldn’t let myself believe that.

  ‘You think they’re out here somewhere on their own? That they got away?’ I turned and looked behind me. ‘Maybe we should double-back. Lay a false trail and . . . They might be hiding in the forest right now. Or they m
ight have gone home to wait and . . .’ The possibilities tore at my resolve and I wished I could split myself and go in different directions, but I could make only one choice, so I had to assume Koschei had them. It was the most likely of all the alternatives that tumbled through my mind, and I made myself concentrate on why I believed that.

  Koschei had visited the village a week ago, maybe a little longer, according to Galina in one of her rare moments of lucidity. If Marianna and the boys had managed to escape, I was sure they would have returned home by now, but I had seen no sign of recent activity there. Nor had I found their bodies – not of any of the women or children – and I couldn’t afford to run blind through the forest searching for them while Koschei moved further and further from me. Returning would waste precious time and increase the possibility of coming face to face with whoever might be following me.

  Pursuing Koschei was my only choice.

  ‘God, I hope they took prisoners. You think they took prisoners?’ I touched the chotki on my wrist.

  Please let them have taken prisoners.

  I stood back and looked at Kashtan, my only friend. ‘I’m sorry I scared you. You ready to go now? You ready to help me find them?’

  Kashtan snorted, bowing her head up and down as if she had understood me.

  She looked fine, so I rolled the blankets and tarpaulin, securing them behind the saddle, then climbed onto her back, but it wasn’t long before she began to favour her right foot, her head bobbing down each time she put pressure on the left.

  My own weight was adding to her pain, so I climbed down and led her through the forest, checking the compass every now and then to make sure we were headed the right way.

  We turned this way and that, never moving in a straight line, stopping from time to time to cover any tracks we had left. If anyone had found our trail in Belev and was following us, it would be difficult for them to hunt us in here, and there would be breaks in our trail, places where we seemed to simply disappear. Our erratic journey through the trees would make it almost impossible to pick up the trail once more. Travelling like that took longer and was more tiring, but if it threw potential hunters off our tracks, it would be worth it.

  I was of no use to Marianna and the boys if I were dead.

  10

  Passing from the gloom into the dull evening light after hours in the forest was like emerging from the underworld. Leaving that darkness was a blessing and the relief was tangible. The air tasted fresher, the expansive sky spread above, and the steppe stretched out before me, a vast sea of frosted grass and thistle and dandelion, scattered with lonely islands of hawthorn and oak. There was cover to be found among the trees behind me, but right now it felt safer to be in the open. In there, anyone following was invisible, and there was a constant sensation of being watched, of being pursued. On the steppe, nothing could hide.

  Out here, I could kill my enemies; in there, they were just wisps of imagination.

  I estimated there was still an hour or so of daylight left, so we pressed on.

  I led Kashtan across the steppe, moving north towards a cluster of trees and elderberry shrubs, and we walked for half an hour before the distant copse began to take shape. A small collection of barren oak and maple, their naked branches laden with the dark and tangled balls of crows’ nests. Seeing the first sign of a rooftop just to the east of them, I stopped and took the binoculars from my saddlebag.

  ‘Let’s see what we have,’ I spoke aloud, as I put the cold lenses to my eyes and scanned west to east.

  The isolated farm was still too far away to see much, but there were at least two buildings: a small, one-roomed farmhouse, not much more than a hovel, and what looked like a barn. In front of them, a field with the late crop rows of alternating green and brown.

  ‘There might be tools,’ I said to Kashtan. ‘A new shoe. Somewhere for you to rest. We’ll have to get closer.’ I lowered the binoculars and narrowed my eyes against the cold. ‘See if anyone’s there.’

  It was a risk to venture close to anywhere occupied. There was no certainty of finding sympathy from anyone. If the farm was occupied, we were as likely to be run off by angry, frightened peasants as we were to be welcomed, but we had no choice. Kashtan needed help. We both needed to rest.

  We carried on as the light faded and the temperature dropped. As night approached, so the wind picked up, moaning as it wheeled across the steppe, a lilting tone, deep and mournful.

  I wrapped my scarf tight and walked with my head down to cut through it, stopping from time to time to watch the farm.

  Coming closer, I saw the smoke from one of the buildings, caught in the wind and almost horizontal as it streamed from the chimney, but there was no other sign the place was occupied. No horses, no activity, and we continued until I could smell the faint odour of burning wood in the breeze.

  The wind was a constant nuisance, as if its intention was to hinder us, and the long, frosty grass was difficult to tread, so our progress was slow, and the closer we came to the farm, the more eager I was to find a warm welcome. But as we reached the edge of the field, scattering a flock of scavenging crows into the air with a raucous cry, I stopped and checked my revolver. I tested the action on my rifle and unfastened two coat buttons so I would be able to slip my hand inside and reach for the knife on my belt if necessary.

  If the reception we received was hostile, I was more than ready to meet it.

  When I was satisfied my weapons were good, I raised the binoculars to scan the buildings once more, this time seeing a single figure emerge from the house.

  The man crossed the yard towards the barn and was almost there when the door to the farmhouse opened again and a second figure, a child, came running out to join him. The child was followed by a dog, which stopped on the threshold and looked towards me. Black-haired and long-legged, it looked almost like a wolf, and when the man turned to look at the boy, he noticed the dog, then followed the direction of its attention, catching sight of Kashtan and me on the other side of the field. He froze for a second before reaching out and pulling the boy close. I held the two of them in the magnified lenses of the binoculars and studied them, wishing I could see them better.

  They looked to be peasants, farmers, not soldiers, but it was impossible to be sure. Without my rifle and my pistol, my own clothes would belie what I really was, just as theirs might be doing right now. Regardless of that, they had seen us and I had a decision to make. The man could be unfriendly, and he and the boy might not be alone.

  I lowered the binoculars and looked at Kashtan’s foot. ‘Or maybe he can help,’ I said, and knew I had to go on. I would deal with whatever situation presented itself.

  If I had to kill them, that’s what I would do.

  At the farm, the dog had left the threshold and run across the yard. It didn’t bark and circle its tail as a dog would usually do, but stood still and watched us as the man and the boy returned to the house, disappearing inside and closing the door.

  I strained my eyes to see them as we walked, and when we came to the edge of the field, I took off my gloves to free my hands for swift action. I inspected the farm once more with the lenses, then forged on, hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.

  The crows alighted in the field behind us as I led Kashtan towards the buildings that nestled by the desolate trees, picking our way along the furrows between the rows of turnips that grew as large as two of my fists, the swollen white roots bulging from the soil.

  The dog continued to watch and I could feel Kashtan’s nervousness, but the beast didn’t venture beyond the yard, and I spoke encouraging words into Kashtan’s ear.

  We slowed down as we came closer, and the man emerged from the house to stand in the same place as before, at the front of his yard, just behind a fence that I hadn’t seen from further away. He was like a statue, feet apart and holding a weapon in both hands. The dog came to sit close to him, but not right beside him. It was as if they were not together. Neither master and dog nor f
riends, but separate.

  When we arrived at the fence, the dog stood, and although there was no overt display of aggression, it was alert to danger, its ears pricked and its body tensed. Close to, it still looked wolf-like with its long legs and large paws. It had a narrow snout, and the fur was thick round its neck, but it was not as black as it had seemed from a distance. There were flecks of brindle in its coat and the first hint of grey around its muzzle. There was a promise of wildness about the animal and its presence made Kashtan uneasy.

  The man shifted the shotgun but didn’t pull it to his shoulder in a show of hostility. Instead he held it at waist height in front of him, the barrel pointing just to one side of us. He was scared and he wanted me to think him dangerous, but at the same time, he didn’t want to provoke a fight.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said, glancing at the weapon, then studying the man’s eyes instead.

  They were hazelnut brown, pale and watery from the cold. Narrowed in suspicion but nervous, as if he wasn’t sure whether to look me in the eye or watch my hands. His features were soft, not the rugged complexion of a farmer who had seen many harvests, but I guessed he was similar in age to me, no more than late thirties. He wore a cap and was bearded like a Cossack, the hair wild about his chin and neck, black as the devil but gunpowder grey around the edges. His coat was knee length, belted at the waist, dirty and flecked with pieces of straw. His boots were in poor shape, repaired and patched and bound to his feet with twine.

  ‘Is this your place?’ I asked, glancing at the dog.

  He nodded once and I wondered how he must see me, a stranger riding out of the steppe, no uniform, no insignia, but armed and leading a horse. I must have looked as wild to him as he did to me. I was dirty from days of living rough, and the last shave I’d had was from a company barber. Now my beard was thickening and growing untidy.