Dan Smith - Red Winter

We had been travelling for an hour, maybe more, when we stopped. Kashtan was too tired to carry us much further without rest, and we had come to a small stream, which was a good place for her to drink.

I dismounted and lifted Anna down, telling her to sit at the base of a nearby oak. She complied without a word, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them as if she were curling herself into a ball. She looked even smaller like that.

I put two of the blankets around her, making sure she was well covered, then hitched Kashtan close to the stream and broke the surface ice with my boot heel. While she drank the chilly water, I took a few things from the saddlebag and returned to Anna’s side.

I stood for a moment, wondering what to say to her. I wanted to give her some words of comfort, tell her something that might alleviate at least some of her pain, but there was nothing I could say. No words could make her feel better about what had happened. The only thing I could do was be with her. Protect her and keep her safe.

‘You should eat something,’ I said, kneeling beside her and unfolding a piece of cloth containing a few strips of dried meat – the last of a deer my brother and I had cured over a fire when we were heading for Belev.

Looking at those strips of meat reminded me of Alek and the loss I had felt. My brother and I had been close, and his passing had been hard, but what Anna was feeling would be worse.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, staring at the thin, dark pieces of dried venison. ‘About your papa. We couldn’t have stopped for him, though, you know that, don’t you?’

It was important to me that she understood. Not for selfish reasons – it wasn’t because I didn’t want her to think ill of me – but because I wanted her to know I hadn’t let her down. That I wouldn’t let her down. That I would keep her safe.

‘It was too dangerous to stop, and he was already…’ I sighed. ‘It was quick. There wasn’t anything we could do.’

‘You could have let me stay with him.’

‘No. It wasn’t safe for you there.’

‘Will he be with Mama now?’ Her voice was almost inaudible and she seemed so small and vulnerable.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ I refolded the cloth without taking any of the venison. Neither of us could face the thought of food.

The forest was quiet, the mist still hanging in the air, the sky darkening. The days were short now, the sun quickly falling below the horizon.

Anna looked up as though she’d had a sudden revelation. ‘We should go back. Maybe Papa is all right. Maybe he’s—’

‘No, Anna, you saw him,’ I spoke gently. ‘Your papa is dead.’ It was a cruel thing to say, and I felt terrible saying it, but she had to accept what had happened. I didn’t want her to persuade herself that we had left him to die alone instead of helping him, or that he would somehow survive and come for her. I knew men who had let themselves believe they had left wounded friends behind rather than dead ones, and the guilt they suffered for the thoughts of not going back was a heavy burden to them. She had to know he was gone and that there was no coming back.

Better to suffer the grief and move forward.

‘Will they come after us now?’ she asked, looking up at me. Her skin was ashen, her eyes red from her tears.

‘I don’t think so. I didn’t see any horses, and they won’t follow on foot. We should be safe here for now.’

‘It was my fault,’ she said.

‘No. It was an accident. You can’t—’

‘Papa said you’d been gone too long.’ Her lips hardly moved as she spoke. ‘He said that something must have happened and that we should leave, just like you told us to.’

Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

‘But I wouldn’t let him. I said you helped us, so we should help you . I made him bring the rifle.’

My heart almost broke for this brave little girl.

‘You came to look,’ I said.

She nodded.

‘And the soldiers saw you.’

‘He did it for me.’ Her face crumpled, her shoulders hitched, and she sobbed in silence, tears falling down her cheeks.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said, putting my arms around her. ‘We should never have stopped there. Blame me. Blame me for what happened. I should never have made you stop there. It was my fault.’

She could hate me if she wanted something to hate, so I gave her a reason, but while I was angry and upset about what had happened to Lev, I wasn’t angry with myself for going to the train. I had come away from there knowing that Koschei had taken prisoners. I now had some hope that Marianna and Misha and Pavel were still alive, even if that hope was tainted by what had happened to Lev.

I pulled Anna to my chest, as I had done with my own children when they needed comfort, and I lowered my head so it was touching hers. I closed my eyes to the world and felt her pain, wanting to make it go away, but knowing I was helpless.

‘I’ll take care of you,’ I told her, but the words sounded weak when I spoke them. I was no replacement for her father.

I don’t know how long we stayed there by the tree. An hour, perhaps, maybe more. We hardly moved. I kept my arms around Anna as her sobbing slowed and finally stopped, and then we just sat together, watching and listening to the forest. We stayed close, huddled together for warmth and comfort, and my exhausted mind wandered, drifting close to sleep. We might have been the only two people in the world.

A slight wind stirred in the treetops, swaying the weaker branches, rubbing them against one another. There came the creak of ancient trees, the swirl and hush of the breeze spiriting through the undergrowth, stirring the amber and red blaze of fallen leaves. The gentle trickle of the stream. The pull and tear of Kashtan’s grazing, the clink of her tack. All these things just at the edge of my consciousness as I came closer and closer to sleep.

And then something else. A more regular disturbance in the forest. A shuffling and crashing that came to me as if in a dream. But I had been too long in the forest to dismiss anything and sleep was immediately brushed aside. My eyes were open in an instant, my mind was alert to my surroundings, and straight away I looked to Kashtan. If there was any danger out there, she would have heard it long before me; she would be showing the signs. What I saw confirmed that the noise had not been in my imagination.

Kashtan had stopped grazing and raised her head, turning her ears, waiting for the sound to come once again.

Together we listened.

The wind picked up, blustering in the trees, but that was not what had woken me. I had heard something more substantial, something more—

Then it came again. The sound of movement in the undergrowth. Something close.

‘Wake up.’ I shook Anna. ‘Wake up.’ I was loath to steal her from her sleep. At least there she would rest. Awake she would only remember her papa.

‘What?’ Her voice was loud and sleepy when she spoke.

‘Sh.’ I put a hand over her mouth and leaned away from her, shaking my head. I pointed out into the woods, then used my teeth to pull off one glove. I spat it aside and put a finger to my lips.

Her eyes widened and she stared at the place where I had pointed. Right now there was nothing to see but the frost-covered trunks and the tangle of brambles and deadwood.

‘Have they come for us?’ she whispered when I took my hand away from her mouth.

‘I don’t know.’ I reached for the revolver in my pocket. ‘Stay right here. Don’t go anywhere.’ As I said it, I had a fleeting memory of the last time I had spoken almost exactly the same words to her, when she had still been with her father and I had gone to the train.