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in irons. Now all he had done, all he lived for, all he hoped to be, depended
on capturing the American.
He stared at the map, stared at the area where he must be. Stared as if his
very gaze would make Makatozi emerge from the map in a living presence.
He had to have him. There was no other way. He had to take the American.
There was no time.
Why had Shepilov gone to Magadan?
Why?
Chapter 23
Alekhin was in no hurry. Siberia was a wide land, and the American was
walking. To pursue a man effectively, it is best to begin with his thinking.
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How did he travel? Where did he sleep? Was he skilled on a trail? What places
did he choose when he wished to hide?
What did he eat? If he hunted, how did he hunt? How expert a woodsman was he?
How did he cross streams? What did he do to avoid encounters with people? What
did he know of the country across which he traveled? What was his eventual
destination? Was he liable to alter that destination? What did he plan to do
when he arrived there?
These were questions Alekhin asked himself, among many others. Bit by bit,
picking up pieces of the trail here and there, he was learning to know Major
Joseph Makatozi, and he was enjoying the acquaintance.
In the first place the man was good. Alekhin had never trailed an Indian
before, although he had tracked down a few of his own people or other
Siberians. The trouble was they were becoming too civilized. The Yakuts,
Ostyaks, and others were losing their wilderness skills. They were working in
factories, becoming soldiers, living in towns where they could see films and
go to places where they could dance the new dances. Only a few of the old ones
understood the forest anymore.
Alekhin was not given to introspection. He did not examine his own motives.
He was given a job to do and he did it. What became of the man after he was
caught he had no idea and did not care. He was a member of the Party, but he
did not think about it. He knew little of the philosophy of Communism and
cared less. Marx and Engels were but names to him. Lenin was one with whom he
could identify, Stalin even more so.
These men and their ideas and accomplishments were far from him. He cared
about the forest, but only as a place to live. He did not object to the
killing of game or the cutting down of trees. He had no knowledge or thought
of the future. The possibility of there being a time when there was no more
forest was something he could not imagine. It had always been here; it would
always be here. The idea that man could not exist on a planet without forests
was completely foreign to him. That trees remove carbon dioxide from air and
return oxygen to it would have only made him blink or shrug. The idea was
something he could not comprehend and with which he was unconcerned. He
gathered wood for his fires, he killed animals to eat, and beyond that he gave
them no thought.
For all city dwellers he had only contempt. He had no sense of inferiority
concerning anybody or anything. There were spirits in the wilderness, in the
trees and mountains, he knew that. Occasionally he appeased them in some minor
way. He respected them without thinking of them.
He was as elemental as a beast. He had the strength of a gorilla and the
movements of a cat. He thought no more of exercise or training than does a
grizzly bear or a tiger. His strength had been born into him, and he used it
constantly.
When Zamatev said he wanted the American alive, Alekhin was only half
listening. Alive or dead did not matter, although it was often less trouble
simply to kill them and save himself the trouble of getting them back to a
highway or a railroad.
As for taking the American alive, Alekhin had his doubts. The American was
revealing himself in his trail. He had also revealed something of himself in
the helicopter incident. The only puzzling question to Alekhin was why the
American had not killed Peshkov. He'd had him cold.
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Alekhin had read the tracks easily enough. The American had had him and let
him go, and Peshkov had immediately informed on him. So the American was a bit
of a fool.
Not entirely a fool. That would be dangerous thinking, but he had hesitated
to kill.
Alekhin wasted no time thinking of motivations. One did what was necessary,
and it had been necessary for the American to kill Peshkov.
The American would not be easily taken. Cornered, he would fight, and Alekhin
would have to kill him.
He would have no choice.
Those soldiers were as much to protect the prisoner when captured as they
were to assist him. So if necessary he might have to kill them, too.
On the third day after Joe Mack's passing, Alekhin and his soldiers came to
the shack of the big young woman with the blue eyes. She knew nothing, had
seen nothing.
Her manner was brusque, and one of the soldiers did not like it. "I shall
come back," he said, "and question you further."
"Bah!" she said contemptuously.
He started back, and Alekhin stopped him with a sharp order. "Do not be a
fool! She would take your rifle from you and spank you with it. She cares
nothing for you or your uniform."
The soldier grumbled, and Alekhin said, "Look around you. This is where she
lives. Could you live here? You would starve. You would die in the cold. Women
like that you leave alone, or speak to politely, very politely."
The soldier continued to mutter, and Alekhin said, "If we had the time I'd [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]