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It was Yakov.
He carried no weapon. He came closer to the fire and took off his mittens,
stretching his hands to the fire. "It is cold," he said, "cold."
His eyes found Joe Mack. "So? It is not easy, what you did. To come here, to
find this place."
Nobody spoke, all seemed to be waiting for something. Joe Mack looked over at
Baronas. "Should I go? If you have something to discuss  ?"
"No. You are one of us now. Please stay."
Yakov looked up at Baronas, rubbing warmth into his hands. "It is no use. He
is no longer in Nerchinsk. He was taken from the prison in the night." He
poked a small stick into the fire. "We were too late," he spoke almost in a
whisper, "too late!"
"But he lives?" Baronas asked.
"He lived then," Yakov said, "and when he was taken from the prison he was
able to walk. I do not know where they have taken him. We must wait."
He glanced at Joe Mack. "They look for you. The job has been given to
Alekhin."
"Alekhin!" Baronas exclaimed. "That is bad, bad!"
Yakov shrugged. "He is only a man."
Nobody spoke. Outside the wind whispered. Then Natalya asked, "Yakov? Have
you eaten?"
He smiled. "Not today. Yesterday, a little."
"Sit where you are. I shall fix something."
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"Meanwhile there is tea," Baronas said. Glancing at him, he said, "You must
be tired."
Yakov indicated Joe Mack. "The country is alive because of him. You must be
important."
Joe Mack shrugged, accepting a cup of tea for himself. "I have escaped. They
do not like that."
Yakov thrust another stick into the fire. "You have not escaped. Siberia is a
prison. It has walls of ice. Nobody escapes from Siberia."
"I shall."
"You are a good man in the forest," Yakov admitted. "You left no mark of your
passing that I could see, but I am not Alekhin."
"He is good, then?"
"The master. No one is better, no one nearly so good. He is a ghost in the
forest, and he can see where nothing is. No one has ever escaped him, no one."
There was talk between them then, but his few words were not enough. When
they spoke slowly and directly to him, he could understand if the words were
simple. Much he had learned from the miners' children returned to him, and
Stephan Baronas was a patient teacher. But when they conversed among
themselves, he could catch only a word from time to time. Yet it was warm and
comfortable, and he did not wish to move.
The comfort was a danger. He must return to the chill of his own camp, where
he would not be so much at his ease as here, where the very cold would serve
to keep him alert.
Twenty-nine people, they had told him. He had met no more than half a dozen,
and there was little moving about. He knew there was discussion of his
presence and argument between those who feared the trouble he would attract
and those who valued the meat he could contribute.
Joe Mack got to his feet. "I go," he said, and went out without looking back.
Outside in the dark the wind was raw and cold. The earth was frozen. It was
unlikely anyone was watching at this hour and in the cold, but he was wary.
When he arrived back at his camp in the rocky hideaway, he built a small fire
and prepared his bed. He must make warmer clothing or he would freeze. Yet
cold as it was, his health was good, and he lived on the meat he killed. It
was a wild life he was living now, but a life to which he was born. He banked
his fire and rolled in his bearskin and stared up at the rock overhead. Soon
he must be going. He was a danger to them here. A little longer, to learn more
of the language, just a little longer.
His eyes had closed, and now they opened again. Was that truly why he was
staying on? Or was it that he needed people more than he had believed?
An icy wind whined through the trees, and a branch cracked in the cold. He
pulled his bearskin snug about him and tried to hide his head from a trickle
of wind from somewhere. He needed to warm the stone before sleeping, to warm
it with his fire; this he must do before he slept at night. He reached an arm
from the warmth of his bed to push another stick into the coals of his fire.
He thought of the rocky cliffs along which he had traveled, of the rivers he
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must cross and the forests he must travel. And then he thought of Alekhin, the
man tracker, of Alekhin who was out there somewhere, out there looking for
sign, trying to find him.
He had believed they did not know where he was, but over the past weeks he
had seen several parties of soldiers, searching. By chance? Or had he left
some clue, some indication of his passing?
Alekhin was good. He must be doubly careful.
For two days he remained away from what he had come to think of as the
village, but on the third day he killed a goral and took its meat to share.
He went to the house of Baronas, but there was no one there. Disappointed, he
turned to go; then he added some fuel to the fire and left the meat he had
brought. He walked away into the forest.
He was deep in the forest, walking on damp leaves among the birch trees and
the larch, when he saw her.
She was standing in a natural aisle among the birch and the larch. Her hood
was thrown back, and a vagrant shaft of sunlight touched her blond hair. She
was, he realized, a beautiful woman. Not that it mattered to him. The days
were passing into weeks, and soon he would be leaving.
She came down through the forest to meet him and paused a few feet away. "You
have not been to see us."
"I built up your fire, and I left meat." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]