Louis L'Amour - Last of the Breed

He shook his head and climbed back to the little ledge he had found. There was shelter there, hidden by trees.

And in the night a great wind blew, trees fell, and rocks tumbled down, crashing into the vast gorge below. Huddled against the cold, he listened, sheltered but awestruck at the storm’s fury. A cold, freezing rain fell, turning to ice in the air, making the trails sheets of ice and the trees like crystal forests that clashed and shattered in the night.

Somewhere a great rock fell; he heard it bounding from ledge to ledge down the canyon.

As suddenly as it came it was over, and a vast silence fell upon the mountain, a silence in which at last he slept, worn from travel.

He slept, and out of the storm and the night a man came, a man like a huge bear, feeling his way along the cliffs, then pausing. At last, unable to progress further, he paused. He was near, he told himself, the American was somewhere near.

Tomorrow he would have him.

Tomorrow…

Ostap stood on the street, a cigarette hanging from his lip. Men were hurrying to work; a few cars passed and a big, clumsy truck. It was early morning, gray and dismal. Across from him was the framework of a huge, rambling structure begun months ago and left standing. In the spring they might finish it and they might not. One never knew in Magadan.

He hunched his shoulders against the cold. Not likely anybody was following him. He was small fry and wanted to stay that way so far as anybody knew. He would get his when the time came, and this affair might be an opening. Ostap was one who lived by the edge.

He had an edge here, an edge there. A piece of this and that. He did not want all of anything. To try to get it all left one vulnerable. But pieces were something else. All he wanted was a percentage.

He had a sort of loyalty to his kind, and his kind did not like Shepilov. He would like to trip Shepilov, do him a dirty one. At the same time, Shepilov was KGB and dangerous. He waited until a big truck passed, and then he crossed the street, started down an alley, and then turned into the incompleted building. In one of the completed rooms on the lower floor, three men were standing around a fire.

It was built on the concrete floor, with broken bits of lumber for fuel. Lev was there and Kraslov. With them was another man, a stranger.

Noticing his hesitation, Lev said, “This is Botev. He is all right.” Lev hunched his shoulders. He was a very young man whose face looked old. His blue eyes were perpetually red-rimmed and he had a slack mouth. Ostap did not like him, but he had connections. He was related somehow to several officials and doted upon by his mother and his aunt. He always knew when there was going to be a shakedown or an investigation, and he always knew who wanted what. He came to Ostap because Ostap knew how to get it.

“Botev is a trapper,” he said. “Lives in the forest.”

“Shepilov is in Magadan,” Ostap advised, reaching his fingers toward the fire.

Lev looked at him from the corners of his eyes. “Now how did you know that? He just arrived.”

Ostap shrugged. “I have my ways.” Better to let them think he had connections, too. And he did have, a few minor ones.

“Kuzmich is recruiting trappers and hunters to search for the American,” Lev said. “Botev has been asked.”

Ostap looked at Botev. “Zamatev wants him, too. Zamatev will pay.”

Kraslov shrugged. “What do you know of Zamatev?” he sneered.

“He will pay. He wants the American.”

Botev spoke up. “He is right. It is Zamatev who needs him most. Shepilov would like to try to get him first. The man escaped from Zamatev.” He squatted on his heels, close to the fire. “You cross Zamatev and he will break your back.”

Ostap glanced at Botev. “Will you go into the woods after the American?”

Botev smiled. “I will look,” he said. Then he added, “He is a Red Indian.”

They were fascinated, as he had known they would be. “A Red Indian? Truly? Does he wear feathers in his hair?”

“That was long ago. Some of them are capitalists now. This one was a flyer.”

“Think of that! A Red Indian who is a flyer! How did he escape?”

“Who knows? Do they ever tell you?”

Ostap spread his fingers toward the fire. “Zamatev will pay,” he repeated. “Shepilov will clap you on the shoulder and tell you what a great thing you have done for the Soviet.”

He glanced over at Botev. “Can you find him? You and the others?”

“What others? I can find him.”

Ostap rubbed his fingers together. “I can reach Zamatev,” he said. “He will pay well. If you can catch him,” he said to Botev, “fine. But speak to the others. Pass the word along. It is Zamatev who will pay.” Ostap looked into the fire, then up at them. “I would not wish to be the man who crosses Zamatev.” He stood up. “Catch him for Russia, but deliver him to Zamatev.”

“You will have no chance,” Kraslov said to Botev, “Alekhin is hunting him.”

There was silence, and then Botev suggested, “We could get him first.”

“Better you do if you want anything from it. If Alekhin gets him, there will only be a body.”

They huddled about the fire, and Ostap was thinking of Botev. A tough man, a good man. How did Lev come to know him? Botev was a man he could work with, but dared he trust him? But, after all, who did one trust? Certainly not Lev, and Kraslov least of all.

Ostap was looking at Botev when Kraslov spoke next. “They just took a man up on the road to Semychan, a man named Yakov. They are bringing him in tonight.”

Ostap was looking at Botev and he saw the man’s expression. Suddenly, he knew. This was why Botev was here. He had been seeking information.

Why? What was Botev’s interest in Yakov? He spoke casually, “I never heard of him.”

“Who hears of anything?” Kraslov said, impatiently. “What do they tell you? Nothing!”

“They do not have to,” Lev said, amused. “Word gets around. Somebody tells his comrade, the comrade tells his girlfriend, and she tells her mother. Soon everybody knows.”

Ostap was thinking. Sure, everybody whispered a little, but there were listening posts, such as this one, where one might hear things others did not talk about. How had Botev come to know Lev? Through the black market? Botev was a trapper and Lev dealt in whatever meant money. But why was Botev interested in the prisoner Yakov? And he was. Ostap had seen his expression. He wanted a word with Botev.

Nobody stayed long at the fire but Ostap had seen deals for thousands of rubles consummated here. No prices talked, just casual meetings and a few words dropped as to what was needed and who would pay and occasionally a figure tossed in the air. If there was no reply, it had to be more. Ostap stood up, sure the movement would attract Botev’s eye. When their eyes met Ostap gestured with his head to indicate they would meet outside.

“Zamatev will pay,” Ostap said again. “He will pay well. If I knew where the American was, I could get us a bit of something very good.”

Ostap went outside, glancing up and down the street as he approached it. Bold as he might appear when talking to Katerina or Kyra, he was cautious in all his relationships and in moving about. He watched Kraslov go off up the street, but Lev lingered, seeming to want to speak. When he did he nodded after Kraslov. “I do not trust him.”

“Who can you trust?”

“I would trust you, Comrade Ostap.” Lev’s tone was sincere.

“And I, you.” Ostap hesitated, and then he said, “But there are some things best left unshared. Why should either get the other into trouble?”

After Lev disappeared, Botev returned. Where he had been in the meantime Ostap did not know.