"L'Amour, Louis - Last_of_the_Breed26" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"He exists. He has been here."
Alekhin thought about it, turning it over in his mind. Evidently, the dead man had seen Makatozi, but had missed his shot.
This had been a good man, one of his best. He had been driving to the coast, heading for Aldoma to interview a man they had taken who might know something.
The man's pistol was gone and the ammunition for it, yet the rifle had been left.
"You mean this American has been here? You believe he did this?"
Alekhin ignored him. The American had a bow and arrow and did not need or want the rifle. He had killed this man with an arrow, then had bundled him into the car and driven him here. It was true, this road went nowhere except to swing in one great circle or to drive back to Nel'kan. And the American was going north again.
Why had he gone east at all? To meet someone? To get into warmer weather for a few weeks? Had he wished to drive to the coast, he could easily have done so, and the chances were he could have driven on into Nel'kan without anyone the wiser,
Kurun-Uryakh? There was a good flying field there, a good base for aircraft. The American was east of the Maya River and living in the forest. The food he had taken would not last long, so he would have to kill for meat.
"We will get him," Alekhin said quietly. "We will get him now."
Suvarov! That fool! Sitting there with all his soldiers, and the American had slipped around them and left them sitting. Alekhin chuckled. Suvarov had failed, but he would get him. He got into the car. "Drive me to the helicopter," he said.
"Is there anything we can do?" Peter asked.
"Stay out of the way," Alekhin replied brusquely. "We do not need you."
The helicopter would fly him to Kurun-Uryakh. There was a gold mine there, he remembered, and they should have communication facilities.
When the helicopter was aloft. Peter Petrovich drove back to Topka, He was a quiet, studious young man who worked quietly at his job and tried to make no waves. He was an able administrator, often impatient with the restraints the bureaucracy placed upon him, but a loyal Soviet citizen. He had read much of America and had often listened to the Voice of America and the BBC, preferring the latter. He did not approve of America. Their government was too confused, too weak. As a Russian he had never known anything but a strong central government. Nor had his parents, grandparents or great-grandparents. Before Lenin and Stalin, there had been the Tsars.
He owned two pairs of blue jeans from America, a few rock and roll records, and even some American books translated into Russian.
He had read everything he could find written by Jack London, and because of that he had strong sympathy for that lone American out there in the taiga. If he had seen him, he would have reported it promptly, but nonetheless, he sympathized with him. Someone had said the man was a Sioux Indian, and Peter Petrovich had read an account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
They said the Indian had been a flyer, and he could not imagine that. It seemed impossible. Yet there were Yakut flyers, and one of his favorite writers was a Yakut. He himself was from Kiev. He had volunteered to come to Siberia because the pay was so much greater and the chances for advancement were better.
He drove back to his building and put the car in the garage. He was thinking of a mug of tea with maybe a touch of vodka to take away the chill.
He opened his door and stepped in, closing the door carefully behind him. Now, to relax! To have his tea, the drop of vodka, and to read!
He turned away from the door and looked into the muzzle of a pistol.
The man holding the gun was the American. He was the Indian. And the gun was very steady; the gray, icy eyes held no mercy.
"First," the American said, "we will eat."