"L'Amour, Louis - Last_of_the_Breed31" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

Last of the Breed
Chapter 31

Now coldly blew the winds, icy blasts from beyond the Arctic Circle. In the small house above Plastun Bay, Stephan Baronas spent much of his time seeking wood in the forest. Here along the Sea of Japan the snow sometimes fell until it was several feet deep.
He came in from the cold, stamping his feet. "It is cold," he said, coming up to the fire. "If this lasts another day I must go to the village for food."
"I will go."
"The snow is deep, Talya."
"I am strong, and much younger than you." She seated herself on the hearth. "I wonder where he is?"
Baronas shook his head. "He is out there; that is all we know except that they do not seem to have caught him. As you know, word gets around. Somebody whispers something and it is passed on, person to person. The trouble is that by the time it reaches us it may be much changed."
"What did you hear?"
"It was just before the storm began. I was down on the shore looking for driftwood. There was a fisherman I know, just down from Magadan, where he sold his catch. The word is they are organizing a search by trappers and hunters, men who know the country."
"Father? Must we wait?"
"Wait? You mean for whatever Bocharev can do? We must. What he can do I do not know, but certainly more than anyone else. Who cares about us? He seems to because of his son. That feeling may pass, and it might be impossible even for him."
"Can we not at least try? That other man? The trader in furs? You suspected he might be arranging to get away over the border? He might take us."
Baronas shook his head. "Zhikarev is a good man but he owes us nothing. Moreover, he will have enough trouble trying to arrange things for himself. My feeling was that he expected to get right away and something went wrong."
"The border is not far, and I am afraid."
"You? You have never been afraid, Talya."
"They might try to use me to capture him." Her eyes were large with worry and fear. "It has come to me in the night. They will do anything to capture him."
"But how would he know? If they took us now, how would they get word to him? It is impossible. You worry needlessly."
"How much longer can we stay here? When spring comes, we can no longer have the house."
He had been thinking of that and shied from the thought. This place, however small and lonely it might be, was snug and warm. It was a refuge, a hiding place from all that crowded about outside. Little as it was, he hated to give up these days of peace. The place was cozy, the view beautiful, and there were no passersby to alert the authorities.
He dreaded another trek across country and the problems of protecting his daughter. So far he had succeeded, but there were bands of young renegades, "hooligans" the law called them, and he was no fighting man. He would soon be seventy and had grown more fragile with the years, although since coming to live in the taiga his health had been better and he was stronger. The north country did not tolerate many germs, and the air was better. They were far from factories and the effects of smokestacks and power lines.
"We must think about it, Talya. I agree we must have an alternative plan if Bocharev forgets or can do nothing. I agree that we must leave, for it is only a matter of time until they descend upon us again.
"We are free now only because they are busy with other things. They have, as the saying is, bigger fish to fry. If they want us, they will have us.
"I think we should make plans now; when this snow is gone, then we can move."
To where? He asked himself this question. The closest point on the Chinese border was beyond Voroshilov. He did not know the towns but must get out his maps and study them. Iman might be better, although farther. There might be fewer people about.
He put on his heavy coat and went out again to gather fuel. It was a never-ending struggle against the cold. Had he been here earlier he would have stacked wood for the winter, but there had been no chance of that.
He walked up into the huge trees in the grove behind the cabin. It was silent there, like walking in a huge cathedral or the temple at Luxor, of which he had seen pictures. It was a good place to think.
Natalya was right, of course. They must not delay. How to get across the border he had no idea. All they could do was get close and study the alternatives. Knowing the thoroughness of the KGB, his only wonder was that they had not already been picked up and interrogated.
Their very presence on this coast was enough to arouse suspicion.
Thoughtfully, be began reviewing all he had learned from the young soldiers during their visits. They had talked a good bit about the borders and their duties, partly to impress Natalya and himself with the importance of what they were doing. This was expected of young men, and their experiences had been interesting as well as informative. Although there were places where troops facing each other verged on outright hostility, there were others where food was exchanged and clothing traded back and forth. At such a point, there might be tolerance unfound elsewhere.
Gathering wood to load the crude sled he had built, he tried to think of every aspect of escape.
To leave here, of course, meant to abandon any help from Bocharev, so all he could do was hope that if such help was to come that it arrive before they fled from here. And the time was terribly short.
It meant crossing the Sikhote Alin Mountains, low but formidable. There were dense forests and man-eating tigers, long feared by the Chinese who lived along the Amur.
There were brigands in those forests now as there had ever been, fierce men who robbed, raped, and terrorized travelers and nearby villages.
Yet if they were to escape, it must be done, and it might be possible to secure transportation. Stephan Baronas was beginning to learn that there were many ways in which to survive and that there existed a clandestine world of which he had never been aware, a half world in which refugees, criminals, and others mingled, aided and robbed each other, and moved across borders without the knowledge of the authorities.
Human nature is such that friendships will develop even among those whose official interests are opposed, and in these days of instant communication such an understanding could possibly avoid a clash that might end in war. Trust is often based on very little more than one's measure of a man.
He loaded his sled with firewood and drew it over the snow to the cabin. By the time he had reached it he knew they must prepare, select several possible avenues of escape and have them ready.
In the village he might establish some contact with a truck driver who would carry them to their destination or at least near to it. Also, he would take a page from Joe Mack's book and scout a trail over the mountains toward the border.
The difficulty was that they must wait to the last minute for what Bocharev might do, while even now their arrest order might lie on a desk somewhere, awaiting implementation.
Fortunately, they had nothing that must be taken, beyond what clothing and food they possessed at the time. Stephan Baronas was beginning to learn that possessions can rob one of freedom just as much as the bars of a cage.
When Stephan Baronas reached the cabin with his sled, he was tired. He paused, waiting outside the door until he had caught his breath, not wanting Natalya to hear how hard it was for him to breathe.
To flee they must cross mountains. How would he manage that? No matter, he would manage it, and the mountains were not so very high.
When he had stopped panting, he opened the door and took an armful of the wood to its place beside the fire. Putting down the wood he brushed off his arms.
"Talya?"
There was no answer. Looking around, he saw the note on the corner of his reading table. There he left the three books he had succeeded in keeping.

Gone to the village.

He swore, exasperated. She knew he had intended to go, and he would not have wished her to climb back up that steep trail. It was a cold walk down to the edge of the bay and then around by the shore, and that was a rough, hard-drinking crowd that hung about there.