Louis L'Amour - Last of the Breed

Joe Mack knew that in such cases, with snow poised to start, a sudden shout or a shot might be enough to start it, particularly in the narrow confines of the canyon.

Their movements on the snowfield might be enough to start a slide, but he could not leave it to chance. He lifted the AK-47 and fired.

He did not aim, because he had no plan to hit anything. He did not know the accurate range of the weapon, although all guns carried farther than most people believed, but the men were a good half mile away. He simply fired, and whether it was their movements or the shot he did not know, but the slide started.

At least two of the soldiers at the rear threw themselves back off the snow, while another two or three had not reached it, but for the others there was no chance.

When the roar of the slide ceased and snow puffed up in a thick cloud, he settled back against his tree and waited. He was relatively secure. There was nowhere on this side of the canyon that overlooked his hideout and no way it could be easily reached except above and behind him, and even that was not a simple way.

He guessed that the patrol he had seen was but one of several. No doubt they had planned to work along both sides of the canyon, but only an officer unfamiliar with such mountains would have attempted it. In such canyons there are usually several levels left by the water in cutting its way through the rock and carving out the gorge. A thorough search might be made on one level while leaving unseen hiding places on the next. Of course, many of these were visible from across the canyon, as his would have been had the patrol crossed the snowfield.

The tilled slope opposite him and somewhat higher was now almost bare of snow. He could see several men huddled together, who seemed in shock. He did not blame them. The snowfield had extended several hundred feet above them and back. It must have seemed that the whole side of the mountain was moving. As he watched, the men turned and started back the way they had come, occasionally turning to look back as if in disbelief of what had happened.

Going to the little hollow at the back of the bench, he built a small fire of dry wood that gave off almost no smoke. He made tea and a thick broth of meat scrap and melted snow. Occasionally he peered through the trees, and always he listened. Alekhin was out there somewhere.

The months of living in the snow and cold had built his resistance to it. It had begun to warm up, and at thirty degrees below zero he was almost warm. He remembered long ago reading an account of Byrd’s men in Antarctica shoveling snow, stripped to the waist at ten degrees below zero. Given a chance, the human body had an amazing capacity for adapting itself to changing conditions.

Undoubtedly a patrol was coming along on his side of the canyon. Knowing the terrain, he knew that the patrol must either be well scattered or fail in covering the area. The nature of the country left only a few possible routes.

His present position was invisible from below. Looking up, they would see only a forested mountainside much too steep for travel. From below, as he had seen for himself, there was no indication of the little bench on which he was camped.

The only possible way of seeing it was from across the gorge where the soldiers had been headed who were carried away by the avalanche. He had meat, and he could afford to sit tight. Hard as it was to remain still, that was just what he must do. The risk was great, yet he needed the rest.

The very nature of the traps he had left behind denied him the chance to know if they had worked. If nothing else, they would make his pursuers move more slowly and with greater caution. Yet now he was within a few hundred yards of at least two such traps.

Here he was sheltered from the wind and from observation except by aircraft, and if he was under the trees they might see his hideout but not him. However, sighting the hideout might lead to a search. Was there communication with the ground forces by radio? He had to believe there was, although there might not be.

Under the trees he found a viewpoint that permitted him to see both possible entries into the hanging valley below him.

Suddenly, on the trail opposite, a soldier appeared. He was only two or three steps above the flat white stone Joe Mack had undermined.

The soldier halted, his weapon ready. He was surveying what he could see of the surprising little valley. He turned and spoke over his shoulder to someone; then another man appeared. Joe Mack could not see his insignia, but supposed him a noncommissioned officer.

There was no way they could see more of the valley without descending into it. As if on command, the soldier started forward; he hit the step above, moving fast, and then he stepped down hard on the flat white stone, as it was somewhat lower than a normal step. Instantly the stone tipped and slid, and the soldier came down hard. The fall was no more than fifteen or sixteen feet, but it was immediately apparent that the fallen soldier had broken his leg.

Others gathered around him while two or three descended into the valley and began a search. An injured man was better than a dead man, for it would take at least two men to carry him back to where he could get attention.

An improvised stretcher was made while two other soldiers attempted to restore the broken step in the path. Joe Mack, resting in his brush hideout, waited and watched.

Only minutes passed before a helicopter appeared. It swung around and surveyed the hanging valley, but appeared to ignore his hideout, which from the air must have seemed no more than a small ledge on the side of the mountain above the valley, a place of no consequence. Unless Alekhin was in that helicopter.

Always, he must remember Alekhin.

The soldiers were laboring back up the path, and he lay quiet, watching them. At last they were gone, and he added spruce boughs to his bed. Taking a chance, he kindled a small fire of dry wood and broiled some meat from the mountain goat. He ate well, drank tea, and extinguished his fire. Again he took a look all about and then returned to his bed.

Lying on his back on the boughs, he stared up into the branches overhead. He had done the right things, made the right moves. Even so he had been lucky, indeed, and such luck could not be expected to last.

He sat up and in the dimming light, studied his maps. Ahead of him lay lower and fewer mountains and many small lakes and tundra. Places to hide would be infrequent, and much of the time he would be traveling in the open.

For three days he remained on the small bench, cold most of the time, having a fire but rarely with which to make tea and boil meat. He saw no more soldiers, although twice planes flew over and once a helicopter. Once, on the far side of the hanging valley, he saw movement in the brush, but nothing appeared. If it was a wild animal, it did not emerge.

He lighted his fire only when the wind was taking the smell of it out over the gorge. He always used dry wood, avoiding smoke.

On the fourth day, he decided to move. Carefully, from a hidden place among the trees, he studied possible routes by which he could keep under cover. He selected a possible destination, although that would vary according to what he found when he arrived. While in camp he doubled his supply of arrows and found two new and better chunks of iron pyrite, which he partly covered with rawhide for a better grip when striking a fire.

He started before dawn on the fifth day, impatient to be off. He went out to the north and stayed under cover of the trees. Now he took special effort to leave no trail. Although he did not like the added weight, he kept the AK-47.

Topping a ridge, he looked over the vast panorama of mountain, forest, and valley toward the east and south. Timbered ridges marched away in endless procession, with hollow basins, ridges of slide rock, patches of snow, and here and there what seemed to be glaciers. Beyond that were great crags and the cone shapes of ancient volcanoes. Avoiding an easy path into the woods, he took a mere goat trail up into the crags and crouched there to study the country. The more he saw of it, the more he was inclined to cut back to the southeast and try to stay clear of regions of small lakes and tundra. It would be much the longer route, but offered better chances of finding cover, as well as wild game.